MY  OWN  STORY 


MY  OWN  STORY 

BYLOl  SCANY 

EX-CROWN  PRINCESS  OF  SAXONY 


TRANSLATED  UNDER  THE  SUPERVISION  OF 


o 


UioOL^'U^CCUc^ 


WITH  19  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  V  DON 

(Tbe    lintcltetbocfier    pcegs 


MY  OWN  STORY 

BY    LOUISA    OF   TUSCANY 
EX-CROWN  PRINCESS  OF  SAXONY 


TRANSLATED  UNDER  THE  SUPERVISION  OF 
THE  AUTHOR 


WITH  19  ILLUSTRATIONS 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
XLbe    fcnfcFierbocfiet    press 


COPTRIGHT,  191 1 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Copyright  for  the  British  Empire  and  the  other  countries  signatory 

to  the  Berne  Convention 

by 

EvELEiGH  Nash 


Published,  October,  1911 
Reprinted,  October,  191 1;  December,  19 11 


tEbc  ImfckcTboclier  press.  'Re*  S«rt 


PREFATORY  STATEMENT 

T  HAVE  frequently  been  urged  to  make  a  public 
repudiation  of  the  various  inaccurate  state- 
ments which,  for  nearly  ten  years,  have  been 
circulated  regarding  my  life  and  actions. 

Hitherto  I  have  maintained  silence,  because 
I  have  disdained  to  reply  to  those  who  have 
maligned  me.  It  has,  however,  been  indicated 
to  me  that  as  my  sons  are  now  approaching  an 
age  when  the  mendacious  assertions  in  question 
may  be  communicated  to  them,  it  is  my  duty, 
as  their  mother,  to  make  public  the  actual 
reasons  which  led  to  my  leaving  Dresden,  and 
to  my  ultimate  banishment  from  Saxony. 

That  is  my  principal  motive  in  publishing 
my  own  recital  of  the  facts,  and  I  am  likewise 
desirous  that  future  historians  of  the  Houses  of 
Saxony  and  Habsburg  should  not  perpetuate 
errors  through  lack  of  contradiction  on  my  part. 

I  also  wish  to  give  an  unqualified  denial  to  the 
prevalent  assumption  that  I  am  the  author  of 
Confessions  of  a  Princess.      I    neither    wrote 

5 


6  PRE  FA  TOR  Y  STATE  MENT 

the  work,  nor  supplied,  directly  or  indirectly, 
any  of  the  material  it  contains,  and  I  am  at 
a  loss  to  understand  how  any  woman  could  be 
credited  with  writing  such  a  revolting  accoimt  of 
her  amours. 

In  conclusion  my  thanks  are  due  to  my 
dear  friend  Mrs.  Maude  Mary  Chester  ffoulkes 
for  her  kindness  in  helping  me  to  prepare  my 
book  for  the  press. 

LOUISA  OF  TUSCANY 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

My  birth  and  parentage — The  Grand  Dukes  of 
Tuscany — How  a  princess  became  the  mother- 
in-law  of  her  own  sister — My  father's  childhood 
— The  Pitti  Palace — Gloomy  grandeur — Love 
laughs  at  locksmiths — My  father's  first  mar- 
riage; his  wife's  death — The  Grand  Ducal 
family  leave  Florence — "  One  longing,  lingering 
look  behind" — My  father's  second  marriage 
— My  mother  and  her  family         .  .  19-36 

CHAPTER  II 

Salzburg — The  Palace — Early  days — My  father — 
His  genius  for  organisation — The  education  of 
a  princess — An  impromptu  bath — Lessons — A 
dull  life — The  power  of  the  priests — Palace 
tyranny 37-54 

CHAPTER  III 

All  about  my  relations — My  uncles — Duke  Charles 

7 


8  CONTENTS 

PACES 

of  Parma — His  collection  of  watches — A  rare 
specimen — The  teeth  that  did  not  fit — A  ducal 
wardrobe — "  All-a-blooming  " — Visits  and  visi- 
tors— Vienna — The  Empress  EUzabeth — How 
her  hair  was  dressed — A  long  walk — The 
Empress  presents  me  with  the  Stem  Kreuz 
Order — Our  last  meeting      .  .  .  55-70 

CHAPTER  IV 

Marriage  projects — Much  of  a  muchness — Dom 
Pedro — My  first  visit  to  Saxony — The  Castle 
of  Moritzburg — The  Coburg  alUance — "Aunt 
Coffee- Mill" — A  screaming  interview     .  71-88 

CHAPTER  V 

Domestic  scenes — Arrival  of  Prince  Frederick- 
August  of  Saxony — I  accept  him  as  my  future 
husband — Our  betrothal — "A  chevalier  sans 
reproche" — Marriage  formalities — My  trous- 
seau and  jewels — I  bid  good-bye  to  Salzburg — 
The  Hofburg — The  act  of  renimciation — My 
wedding  day — "Golden  Roses" — My  little 
train-bearer — An  old  superstition — How  it 
came  time — We  leave  for  Prague — The  Emper- 
or's train  de  luxe  ....         89-106 

CHAPTER  VI 
Hradschin  and  its  surroundings — The  Ghetto  at 


CONTENTS  9 

PAGES 

Prague — ^A  discourse  on  the  chosen  people — We 
goto  Dresden — Popular  excitement — Our  State 
entry — Roses  everywhere — The  Taschenberg 
Palace — Rococo  furniture  and  bad  taste  pre- 
dominant— The  dog  that  bit  every  one — Excite- 
ment and  fatigue — We  begin  to  settle  down — I 
resolve  to  make  the  best  of  my  Ufe         .        107-116 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  royal  family — My  father-in-law — His  fanaticism 
— Princess  Mathilde — Her  love  of  ants — Her 
piety — Dress  and  appearance — Her  curiosity 
— Prince  John  George — Lives  of  the  Popes — 
Prince  Max  of  Saxony — Cleanliness  and  godli- 
ness— Mutual  antagonism — "  C'estmalheureux 
que  tu  sois  venue  dans  notre  famille"    .       1 17-134 


CHAPTER  VIII 

My  first  visit  to  Berlin — The  Emperor  William — 
What  I  think  of  him — The  green  chiffon  dress 
— Customs  and  ceremonies — The  ghostly  car- 
riage at  the  Royal  castle — The  treasure-house 
— Some  stories  about  August  the  Strong — His 
ugly  daughter-in-law — A  defiant  Electress — 
Carried  away  in  earnest — The  fate  of  a  prac- 
tical joker — The  frightened  blacksmith — The 
strong  man  indeed        ....        135-150 


lo  CONTENTS 

PACBS 

CHAPTER  IX 

Motherhood — Birth  of  the  Crown  Prince — A  quar- 
rel with  my  father-in-law — Popular  enthusiasm 
— "Our  Louisa" — Domesticity — Country  life 
— Mathilde  and  the  strawberries — An  "  enfant 
terrible" — The  creche — The  Socialist's  baby  1 51-172 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Court  circle — "Noah's  Ark" — Calico  and 
crochet — Drink  and  gambling — The  German 
Emperor — His  power  in  Saxony — The  invasion 
of  England — The  Archduke  Franz-Ferdinand 
as  a  possible  ally — The  Opera  at  Dresden — I 
see  it  from  the  gallery — The  affair  of  the  Collier 
— Faust  at  the  Court  theatre — Royal  visitors  173-186 

CHAPTER  XI 

Why  and  wherefore — Explanations — Mixed  blood 
— A  story  of  the  French  Revolution — The 
bicycle  craze  —  I  am  reprimanded  —  Petty 
tyranny — The  pearl  necklace — The  recipe  for 
a  popular  Queen  of  Saxony  .  .  .       187-202 

CHAPTER  XII 

Sturm  und  Drang — Death  of  King  Albert — An  un- 
comfortable journey — The  woman  in  black — 
At  Sibyllenort — Family  disputes — "  Le  Roi  est 


CONTENTS  II 

PAGES 

mort" — We  return  to  Dresden — A  thirsty- 
princess — I  meet  the  German  Emperor — "  My 
political  friend  " — King  Albert's  funeral — A 
wreath  of  water-lilies — The  spectral  cat — The 
midwife's  prophecy      ....       203-214 

CHAPTER  XIII 
J'accuse  .......       215-230 

CHAPTER  XIV 
I  leave  Dresden         .....       231-250 

CHAPTER  XV 

My  arrival  at  Salzburg — A  fruitless  interview — 
My  brother  protects  me — We  agree  to  fly 
together — A  night  adventure — We  start  for 
Switzerland  .....       251-262 

CHAPTER  XVI 

I  arrive  at  Zurich — My  future  sister-in-law — A  rude 
awakening — My  terrible  position — The  only 
way — M.  Giron  joins  me — A  wild-goose  chase 
— The  secret  police — Their  fruitless  journey — 
Legal  proceedings  commence         .  .       263-278 

CHAPTER  XVII 
Apr^s  moi  le  deluge — The  people's  sympathy — The 


12  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

Stone  throwers — Blind  justice — Money  versus 
honour — The  letter  that  never  reached  me — I 
enter  La  Maitcrie — Bolts  and  bars — A  plague 
of  nurses — Cold  food  but  comforting  chocolate 
— A  spirit  in  prison — I  look  far  back — My 
awakening  .....       279-296 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

I  leave  La  Maiterie — A  reconciliation  with  my 
parents — Birth  of  Monica — The  chdlet  at 
Wartegg — I  interview  the  Socialist  leaders — 
The  Red  Queen — Death  of  my  father-in-law; 
his  remorse — Hope  deferred — The  eccentrici- 
ties of  the  Habsbm"gs — The  story  of  John  Orth 
— "  I  will  return "        .  .  .  .       297-320 

CHAPTER  XIX 

The  Emperor  Francis- Joseph — His  power  in  family 
affairs — The  tragedy  of  Meyerling — What  I 
know  about  it — The  body  under  the  cover — 
The  Story  of  Isabella  of  Parma — "Three  hours, 
three  days,  three  years  " — I  resolve  on  a  coup 
de  tete — Once  again  in  Dresden — I  am  arrested 
outside  the  palace — The  attitude  of  the  people 
— I  leave  for  Leipzig — A  wonderful  reception — 
I  learn  the  value  of  disinterested  affection    321-346 

CHAPTER  XX 
Popular  feeling  in  Saxony — Life  at  St.  Domenico — 


CONTENTS  13 

PAGES 

I  am  not  allowed  to  remain  in  peace — Alma 
Muth,  spy — The  King  of  Saxony's  lawyer 
arrives  in  Florence — An  interview  at  the  Con- 
sulate— I  refuse  to  surrender  Monica — The 
siege  of  the  villa — I  turn  Alma  Muth  out  of  the 
house — She  goes  to  Pegli  with  Dr.  Komer — 
What  was  overheard  in  the  restaurant  car — I 
make  the  acquaintance  of  another  spy,  Frau 
Ida  Kremer — Her  methods — A  vile  book — I 
receive  permission  to  see  my  children — Our 
meeting  in  Munich — I  resolve  to  let  Monica  go 
to  Saxony — My  second  marriage — I  conclude 
my  story 347-367 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Louisa  of  Tuscany,  Ex-Crown  Princess  of  Saxony 

Frontispiece 

My    Father:    Ferdinand    IV.,    Grand    Duke    of 

Tuscany    .......       27 

The  Imperial  Castle  of  Salzburg,  My  Birthplace   .       41 

My  Husband:  Kjng  Frederick- August  of  Saxony  .       93 

My   Father-in-Law :    the   Late   King    George    of 

Saxony       .......      121 

My  Sister-in-Law :  Princess  Mathilde  of  Saxony    .     127 

My  Husband  and  Myself  with  Our  Eldest  Child 

(lury) 155 

My  Eldest  Son:  George,  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony 

(lury) 159 

My   Second   Son:    Prince  Frederick-Christian  of 

Saxony  (Tia)       .  .  .  .  .  .163 

My  Youngest  Son :  Prince  Ernest-Henry  of  Saxony 

(Emi)  .         .  .         *.  .  .167 

15 


i6  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGB 


Myself  in  Fancy  Dress,  as  Marie  Antoinette  .  191 

My  Husband:  a  Snapshot  Taken  by  Myself  .  195 

Baron  George  von  Metzsch,  the  man  who  said  of 
me,  "  I  will  ruin  this  woman,  but  I  wall  ruin 

her  slowly "     .  .  .  .  219 

The  Schoolroom  at  the  Royal  Palace,  Dresden       .  241 

My  Daughters:  the  Princesses   Margaret,  Maria- 

Alix,  and  Anna- Monica       ....  247 

The  Royal  Palace,  Dresden         ....  283 

Monica    ........  301 

My  Three  Boys:  Left  to  Right,  lury,  Emi,  Tia. 

May,  1909 333 

Princess  Louisa  .  .  .  .  .  .361 

Photograph  by  the  Dover  Street  Studios,  Ltd.,  London,  W. 


MY  OWN  STORY 


CHAPTER  I 


My  birth  and  parentage — The  Grand  Dukes  of  Tuscany 
— How  a  princess  became  the  mother-in-law  of  her 
own  sister — My  father's  childhood — The  Pitti  Palace 
— Gloomy  grandeur — Love  laughs  at  locksmiths — 
My  father's  first  marriage;  his  wife's  death —  The 
Grand  Ducal  family  leave  Florence — "  One  longing, 
lingering  look  behind" — My  father' s  second  marriage 
— My  mother  and  her  family. 


«9 


CHAPTER  I 


T  WAS  born  at  the  Imperial  Castle  of  Salz- 
burg on  September  2,  1870.     My  father  was 
Ferdinand  IV.,  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  and 
my  mother  was  Princess  Alice  of  Parma. 

Genealogical  details  are  frequently  dull,  so 
I  do  not  propose  to  write  at  any  great  length 
about  my  family  history.  My  father's  ances- 
tors had  reigned  in  Tuscany  since  the  death 
of  Giovan  Gastone,  the  last  Medicean  Grand 
Duke,  in  1737,  when  Francis,  Duke  of  Lorraine, 
and  his  wife  the  Archduchess  Maria-Theresa, 
assumed  the  sovereignty  until  the  death  of 
Charles  VI.  made  them  Emperor  and  Empress 
of  Austria.  Their  second  son,  Pietro-Leopoldo, 
then  took  the  title  of  Grand  Duke,  and  he  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Ferdinand  III.,  who  had 
married  Princess  Louisa- Maria- Amalia  of  Na- 
ples. Ferdinand,  who  was  the  first  sovereign  to 
enter  into  diplomatic  relations  with  the  French 
Republic,  died  in  1824,  and  his  son,  afterwards 
Leopold  11. ,  was  my  paternal  grandfather. 


21 


22  MY  OWN  STORY 

Leopold  being  very^  delicate  as  a  young  man, 
it  was  considered  desirable  that  he  should  marry 
early,  with  the  object  of  securing  the  succession. 
Princess  A laria- Anna-Carolina  of  Saxony  was 
chosen  for  his  future  wife,  and  negotiations 
between  the  two  Courts  resulted  in  a  marriage 
by  proxy  taking  place  at  Dresden  in  1817. 

The  Princess,  a  highly  nervous  girl,  was  so 
terrified  at  the  idea  of  meeting  her  unknown 
bridegroom  that  she  refused  to  leave  Dresden 
unless  accompanied  by  her  sister,  to  whom  she 
was  devotedly  attached;  and  cajoleries  and 
threats  failed  to  change  her  decision. 

The  two  girls,  therefore,  arrived  at  Florence, 
and  the  unexpected  happened,  for  the  old 
Grand  Duke  Ferdinand  III.,  who  was  a  widower 
of  sixty-nine,  fell  in  love  with  the  unmarried 
princess.  Ke  shortly  afterwards  married  her, 
and  in  this  way  she  became  the  mother-in-law 
of  her  own  sister. 

Two  daughters  were  bom  of  my  grandfather's 
first  marriage;  one  died  when  she  was  sixteen; 
and  the  other,  Princess  Augustine,  married  the 
present  Prince  Regent  of  Bavaria,  who  recently 
celebrated  his  ninetieth  birthday.  In  1833,  my 
grandfather  married  again,  his  second  wife 
being  Marie- Antoinette,  daughter  of  Ferdinand 


MY  OWN  STORY  23 

III.,  King  of  Naples,  and  his  wife  Caroline, 
a  sister  of  the  ill-fated  Marie-Antoinette  of 
France. 

Queen  Caroline  seems  to  have  possessed  con- 
siderable individuality,  and  she  must  have 
been  a  woman  of  exceptional  courage  and  iron 
constitution,  for  she  insisted  on  accompanying 
her  husband  to  the  wars,  and  rode  by  his  side, 
indifferent  to  discomfort  and  fatigue.  She  had 
sixteen  children  and  nursed  them  all  herself; 
the  youngest  infant  went  through  these  cam- 
paigns with  her,  in  charge  of  a  nurse,  and  the 
Queen  used  to  dismount  at  intervals  and  suckle 
her  baby,  sitting  by  the  roadside,  undisttirbed 
by  wars  or  rumours  of  wars.  Her  last  child 
was  in  fact  almost  born  on  horseback. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte  found  an  unexpected 
champion  in  this  strange  woman,  who  was  the 
grandmother  of  Marie-Louise.  She  had  always 
regarded  him  as  her  peculiar  enemy,  but  after 
his  downfall  she  was  touched  with  compassion, 
and  strongly  resented  the  efforts  made  by  the 
Viennese  Court  to  separate  him  from  his  wife. 
**I1  fallait,"  she  declared,  "que  Marie-Louise 
attachat  les  draps  de  son  lit  a  sa  fen^tre  et 
s'echappM  sous  un  d^guisement. " 

My  grandmother  had  ten  children,  my  father 


S4  MY  OWN  STORY 

being  the  eldest.  I  have  dim  recollections  of 
her,  but  she  did  not  emulate  her  mother,  the 
redoubtable  Caroline,  in  a  single  trait;  she  was 
stiff,  a  slave  to  etiquette,  and  a  bigoted  Catholic, 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  priests.  She  was, 
however,  intelligent.  We  were  always  very 
much  afraid  of  her,  and  she  was  mean  to  miser- 
liness; indeed,  to  dine  with  grandmother  meant 
getting  hardly  anything  to  eat.  She  died  near 
Salzburg  in  1898,  a  lonely,  colourless  woman; 
and  heredity,  so  strong  in  our  family,  gave  to 
her  children  the  individuality  she  had  been 
denied. 

My  father's  childhood  was  passed  in  Florence 
at  the  Pitti  Palace,  which  George  Eliot  has 
described  as  "a  wonderful  union  of  Cyclopean 
massiveness  with  stately  regularity."  The 
story  goes  that  Luca  Pitti,  the  opponent  of 
the  Medici,  buUt  it  to  outrival  the  Strozzi 
Palace,  and  he  is  said  to  have  boasted  during  a 
banquet  that  he  would  build  a  palace  with  a 
court-yard  which  would  alone  be  able  to  contain 
the  whole  of  the  Palazzo  Strozzi.  The  build- 
ing was  not  completed  until  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  when  it  came  into  the  pos- 
session of  Eleanor  of  Toledo,  the  wife  of  Duke 
Cosimo  L,  and  it  was  thenceforward  the  home 


MY  OWN  STORY  25 

of  the  Medici  until  my  ancestors  became  Grand 
Dukes  of  Tuscany. 

The  Pitti  is  too  well  known  to  need  detailed 
description.  It  has  always  struck  me  as  im- 
posing in  its  cold  way,  but  I  do  not  think  it 
could  ever  have  been  a  "home"  for  its  occu- 
pants. The  salons  are  splendid,  the  art  trea- 
sures are  wonderful;  but  it  is  cheerless,  and  the 
only  rooms  in  it  which  I  ever  covet  are  the  tiny 
boudoir  and  bathroom  of  Marie-Louise,  which 
are  decorated  and  furnished  in  the  best  Empire 
style. 

My  grandfather's  Court  was  as  gloomy  as 
the  Palazzo  Pitti  itself,  and  the  Grand  Ducal 
children  were  brought  up  most  strictly.  Ai 
five  o'clock  every  morning  they  were  expected 
to  say  "Bon  jour"  to  their  parents,  a  proceed- 
ing which  entailed  much  ceremony.  They  were 
taken  to  an  anteroom  adjoining  their  parents' 
bedroom,  and  with  their  governesses  and  tutors 
in  close  attendance  the  little  princes  stood  on 
one  side  of  the  salon  and  the  little  princesses 
on  the  other.  All  conversation  was  forbidden, 
and  when  five  o'clock  struck,  the  Groom  of 
the  Chambers  threw  open  the  great  doors  and 
they  walked  in  solemnly  and  kissed  their  par- 
ents' hands.     Coffee  was  then  served,  and  the 


26  MY  OWN  STORY 

children  took  formal  leave  and  went  to  their 
lessons.  Ten  o'clock  was  the  luncheon  hour, 
when  all  the  family  met,  and  my  great-aunt, 
Princess  Louisa,  was  always  much  in  evidence. 
She  was  a  dw^arf,  with  the  crooked,  malicious 
mind  that  so  often  goes  with  a  crooked  body. 
She  had  very  long,  monkey-like  arms,  and  when- 
ever she  was  displeased  she  would  fling  them 
out  like  the  sails  of  a  windmill  and  hit  which- 
ever of  her  ladies-in-waiting  happened  to  be 
standing  nearest  to  her.  She  was  an  odious 
little  creature  and  hated  everybody  who 
was  young  and  pretty,  with  the  result  that 
she  was  cordially  detested  even  by  her  own 
relations. 

After  limch  the  children  played  in  the  Boboli 
Gardens,  which  were  then  better  kept  up  than 
they  are  to-day.  I  shall  always  remember  how 
disappointed  an  English  friend  of  mine  was 
when  I  took  her  to  see  the  gardens  for  the  first 
time.  She  is  a  romantic  person,  who  quite 
expected  to  see  something  very  beautiful  and 
not  the  badly  trimmed  hedges  and  ragged  grass 
which  met  her  horrified  gaze. 

At  eight  o'clock  came  the  diner  de  ceremonies 
which  the  children  heartily  enjoyed,  as  they 
had  had  no  food  since  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning, 


Photo  by  Kollertanar,   Budapest. 

MY    father:    FERDINAND    IV,    GRAND    DUKE   OF  TUSCANY 

27 


MY  OWN  STORY  29 

and  my  father  has  often  told  me  how  raven- 
ously hungry  they  used  to  become. 

Papa  was  a  handsome  young  man  with  black 
curling  hair,  brown  eyes,  and  an  amiable  expres- 
sion. He  was  of  medium  height,  slender  and 
well  knit,  full  of  energy,  and  possessed  the 
best  disposition  in  the  world.  He  was  very 
clever,  and  acquired  any  number  of  accom- 
plishments, as  well  as  being  proficient  in  the 
more  serious  studies  which  his  future  position 
required. 

Like  most  of  the  Habsburgs,  papa  was  al- 
ways attracted  by  a  beautiful  woman,  and  he 
fell  in  and  out  of  love  very  easily.  At  the  age 
of  eighteen  he  had  an  affaire  de  cceur  with  a 
petite  bourgeoise,  who  lived  near  the  Pitti  Palace ; 
but  directly  it  was  discovered  he  was  shut  up 
in  his  rooms  for  a  fortnight,  and  forbidden  to 
see  or  to  correspond  with  the  fair  one.  At  last 
the  youthful  lover  discovered  a  means  of  com- 
municating with  his  inamorata.  He  procured 
a  large  sheet  of  cardboard,  on  which  he  cut  out 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  covered  over 
the  cut-out  portions  with  transparent  paper. 
When  night  fell  he  placed  the  sheet  of  card- 
board before  his  open  window,  put  a  lighted 
candle  behind    certain    letters    until    he    had 


30  MY  OWN  STORY 

completed  a  word,  and  in  this  ingenious  way 
conveyed  his  messages  to  the  girl,  who  stood 
in  the  street  facing  the  palace. 

Papa  was  only  twenty-one  when  he  married 
Princess  Anna,  the  daughter  of  King  John  of 
Saxony,  who  translated  Dante  under  the  nom 
de  plume  of  "  Philaletes. "  Anna's  mother, 
Queen  Amelia,  was  a  daughter  of  Prince  Maxi- 
milian of  Bavaria,  and  a  twin  out  of  two  sets 
of  twin  girls.  Her  own  twin.  Princess  Eliza- 
beth, married  Frederick  William  IV.,  King  of 
Prussia;  the  other  twins,  Sophia  and  Marie, 
married  respectively  the  Archduke  Franz-Karl 
(father  of  the  present  Emperor  of  Austria) 
and  Frederick- August  II.,  King  of  Saxony,  and 
it  is  thus  remarkable  that  two  sisters  became 
in  turn  Queens  of  the  same  country. 

Princess  Anna  captured  all  hearts  on  her 
arrival  in  Florence,  and  when  she  died  in 
Naples,  three  years  after  her  marriage,  from 
typhoid  fever  contracted  through  eating  oysters, 
she  was  universally  and  unfeignedly  lamented. 
Her  little  daughter,  Marie- Antoinette,  was  taken 
to  Saxony  and  brought  up  by  her  grandparents 
at  Dresden  until  she  was  fourteen,  when  her 
father  remarried.  She  was  a  gifted  girl  with 
a  charming  talent  for  versifying,  but  she  died 


MY  OWN  STORY  31 

of  consumption  at  Cannes  in  all  the  promise  of 
her  youth  and  beauty. 

My  family's  connection  with  Tuscany  as 
reigning  Grand  Dukes  terminated  after  the 
defeat  of  the  Austrians  at  Solferino.  The  terms 
of  the  Peace  of  Villafranca  compelled  the 
Emperor  to  surrender  Lombardy  to  Victor 
Emmanuel  and  also  to  consent  to  the  incor- 
poration of  Tuscany  into  the  Italian  dominion. 
My  grandfather  was  intensely  Austrian  at  heart, 
and  he  refused  to  consider  any  decree  which 
made  him  a  constitutional  sovereign.  The 
political  situation  became  so  menacing  that  the 
Grand  Ducal  family  had  to  leave  Florence  in 
precipitate  haste  on  April  27,  1859.  The  fugi- 
tives were  my  grandfather  and  grandmother, 
my  father,  then  a  widower  of  twenty-four,  and 
his  little  one-year-old  girl,  my  aunts  and  uncles, 
and  the  widow  of  the  old  Grand  Duke.  It  was 
a  magnificent  day,  intensely  hot,  with  cloud- 
less azure  skies,  and  as  the  carriages  containing 
the  Royal  Family  left  the  Pitti  Palace,  crowds 
thronged  the  streets  and  impeded  the  horses' 
progress.  The  Florentines  viewed  their  Grand 
Duke's  departure  quite  calmly,  many  saying 
with  smiling  affability  which  greatly  enraged 
my  grandfather,  "Addio,  Babbo  Leopoldo." 


32  MY  OWN  STORY 

The  travelling  carriages  soon  left  Florence 
far  behind,  and  only  clouds  of  dust  showed  the 
road  taken.  The  state  of  the  Grand  Ducal 
family  was  not  an  enviable  one,  for  they  had 
left  home  so  hurriedly  that  they  had  no  personal 
belongings  of  any  kind,  and  everything,  even  to 
baby  clothes,  had  to  be  bought  en  route. 

The  gorgeous  tapestries,  exquisite  pictures, 
jewels,  enamels,  gold  and  silver  plate,  and  art 
treasures  of  every  description  were  left  behind 
at  the  Pitti;  and  when  King  Victor  Emmanuel 
went  to  the  palace  he  slept  between  sheets 
embroidered  with  the  arms  of  the  fugitive 
Duke. 

\Yhen  the  unhappy  exiles  reached  the  heights 
from  which  a  beautiful  view  of  Florence  is 
obtained,  my  grandfather  ordered  the  carriages 
to  stop,  and  he  and  his  family  alighted  in  order 
to  take  a  last  farewell  look  at  their  home.  They 
were  all  very  much  affected,  and  with  one 
accord  broke  down  and  wept  bitterly.  They  sat 
by  the  roadside  in  a  tearful  row  and  endeavoured 
to  recover  their  composure,  but  when  my  aunt 
proceeded  to  dry  her  tears  the  awful  fact  was 
discovered  that  no  one  in  the  party  had  a  pocket 
handkerchief.  This  was  certainly  unpleasant, 
for   the   tears,   coursing   down   cheeks   already 


MY  OWN  STORY  33 

covered  with  dust,  had  left  dirty  and  gritty 
channels  which  did  not  improve  the  appearance 
of  the  "illustrious"  family  who  were  in  despair 
at  their  ridiculous  position.  The  situation,  how- 
ever, was  saved  by  my  grandmother,  who  on 
this  occasion  displayed  a  little  of  her  mother's 
originality.  Lifting  her  voluminous  skirts,  she 
took  a  comer  of  her  equally  voltuninous  lace 
petticoat  and  with  extreme  care  and  delicacy 
proceeded  to  wipe  away  the  tears  and  dust 
from  the  faces  of  her  family,  until,  at  last, 
somewhat  more  soignes  they  re-entered  their 
carriages  and  continued  their  flight. 

After  leaving  Tuscany,  my  grandfather  bought 
the  Castle  of  Brandeis  in  Bohemia,  and  another 
residence  near  Carlsbad,  called  Schlakenwerth, 
where  he  spent  much  of  his  time.  My  father 
visited  Schonbrunn,  but  he  was  very  unsettled 
and  miserable,  and  finally  went  to  Bavaria. 
He  spent  his  summers  on  the  Lake  of  Con- 
stance, where  Princess  Luitpold  had  a  villa, 
and  eventually  built  a  villa  for  himself,  on  quite 
original  lines,  at  Lindau.  He  would  not 
employ  an  architect,  but  had  the  work  car- 
ried out  under  his  directions  by  an  engineer 
and  a  few  workmen.  Papa's  interest  in  house- 
building  did  not,  however,  commend  itself  to 


34  MY  OWN  STORY 

my  grandfather,  who  wished  him  to  many 
again. 

The  Grand  Duke  always  hoped  to  be  re-estab- 
lished in  Tuscany,  so  he  strongly  urged  my 
father  to  look  out  for  an  eligible  princess,  and 
he,  hke  a  dutiful  son,  at  once  commenced  a  round 
of  visits  "with  a  view  to  matrimony."  His 
choice  fell  on  Princess  Alice  of  Parma,  whom  he 
met  at  the  house  of  her  uncle,  the  Comte  de 
Chambord,  who  resided  at  Frohsdorf  near 
Vienna. 

Princess  Alice  was  the  daughter  of  Louisa, 
Duchess  of  Parma,  whose  mother  was  the 
Duchesse  de  Berri.  She  had  married  Duke 
Charles  of  Parma  when  a  mere  girl,  and  her 
handsome  but  flighty  husband  was  murdered 
(some  say  at  the  instigation  of  a  gentleman 
jealous  of  his  wife's  honour)  at  the  early  age 
of  thirty-two. 

Troubles  broke  out  in  Parma  which  event- 
ually ended  in  a  revolution,  and  the  Duchess 
with  her  four  children  fled  in  disguise  to  Switzer- 
land, where  they  lived  for  two  years,  practi- 
cally penniless,  in  a  tiny  house  near  Zurich. 
Things  changed,  however,  for  the  better,  and 
the  Duchess  bought  the  Castle  of  Wartegg  near 
Rorschach  on  the  Lake  of  Constance;  but  she 


MY  OWN  STORY  35 

did  not  like  Switzerland,  possibly  on  account  of 
some  unpleasant  memories,  so  she  went  to  Venice, 
where  she  bought  the  Palazzo  Cavalli  in  order 
to  be  near  her  half-brother,  who  lived  there. 
The  Duchess  died  at  Venice  of  typhoid  fever  at 
the  age  of  forty-two,  and  her  illness  was  so  sudden 
that  she  did  not  see  her  children  before  her 
death,  as  the  girls  were  at  the  Sacre  Cceur  Con- 
vent near  Bregenz,  and  the  boys  at  the  Jesuit 
Seminary  of  Feldkirch. 

When  the  education  of  the  young  princesses 
was  completed,  the  eternal  question  arose  of 
marrying  them  as  quickly  as  possible.  One 
married  the  late  Don  Carlos,  Duke  of  Madrid, 
and  the  Princess  Alice  became  my  father's  wife. 

The  marriage  took  place  on  January  11, 
1868,  and  on  December  2d,  of  the  same  year,  a 
son,  the  first  child  of  a  family  of  ten,  was  bom. 

My  mother  was  a  pretty,  petite,  fair  girl  at 
the  time  of  her  marriage,  full  of  energy,  and 
quite  ready  to  enjoy  life  thoroughly  after  her 
dull  upbringing  at  the  convent.  She  danced 
exquisitely,  was  a  fine  shot,  a  good  horsewoman, 
and  before  the  babies  followed  fast  on  each 
other's  heels,  she  lived  solely  for  amusement. 
Her  jewels  are  wonderful;  she  has  some  of  the 
finest  diamonds  in  Europe,  and. possesses  what 


36  MY  OWN  STORY 

to  my  mind  is  worth  more  than  all — a  famous 
necklace  of  Marie- Antoinette  on  the  design  of 
which  Boehmer  lavished  all  his  skill. 

After  my  father's  second  marriage,  the  Em- 
peror of  Austria,  his  third  cousin,  gave  him 
part  of  the  Imperial  Castle  of  Salzburg  for  a 
residence,  and  there  I  spent  my  childhood  and 
girlhood. 


CHAPTER  II 


Salzburg;  the  Palace — Early  days — My  father;  his  genius 
for  organisation — The  education  of  a  princess — An 
impromptu  hath — Lessons — A  dull  life — The  power 
of  the  priests — Palace  tyranny. 


37 


CHAPTER  II 


TN  1870,  my  grandfather  died,  and  my  father, 
the  Archduke  Ferdinand,  became  Grand 
Duke  of  Tuscany.  He  had  previously  promised 
the  Emperor  Francis- Joseph  that  he  would 
never  attempt  to  go  near  Florence  on  account 
of  the  political  situation,  and  the  title  of  Grand 
Duke  was  conferred  upon  him  for  life;  after  his 
death  it  was  stipulated  that  his  children  should 
be  known  as  Princes  and  Princesses  of  Tuscany, 
as  well  as  Archdukes  and  Archduchesses  with 
the  style  of  Imperial  and  Royal  Highnesses. 

The  Emperor,  as  I  have  before  stated,  placed 
part  of  the  Imperial  Castle  of  Salzburg  at  my 
father's  disposal,  and  there  we  spent  our  child- 
hood. Salzburg  is  a  picturesque  town,  about 
seventy-three  miles  from  Munich,  surrounded 
by  mountains,  and  its  only  claim  to  fame  seems 
to  be  that  it  was  the  birthplace  of  Mozart. 
The  palace,  which  is  so  extensive  that  it  is 
possible  to  reach  three  different  churches  with- 
out   leaving    its    precincts,    was   built   by   the 

39 


40  MY  OWN  STORY 

Archbishops  of  Salzburg,  about  1600,  and  these 
prelates  were  grands  viveurs  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  When  they  tired  of  the  restraint  and 
gloom  of  the  castle,  they  quietly  disappeared 
down  a  subterranean  passage  which  led  to  a 
charming  villa  called  Hellbrunn,  and  there  they 
were  able  to  pass  the  time  more  pleasantly 
than  at  the  episcopal  palace. 

VvTien  I  was  a  child,  the  palace  w^as  the  sad- 
dest and  gloomiest  place  imaginable.  It  was 
certainly  very  imposing,  but  it  was  also  ex- 
tremely uncomfortable  as  a  residence,  and  there 
was  nothing  artistic  about  it,  inside  or  out.  It 
was  not  properly  kept  up;  it  looked  fast  falling 
into  decay,  and  in  some  rooms  the  once  expen- 
sive wall  coverings  hung  in  damp  discoloured 
strips  which  were  never  replaced.  Grim  stories 
of  secret  murders  clung  round  this  depressing 
place,  and  I  remember  how  frightened  we  were 
as  children  when  we  were  told  that  the  pictures 
in  the  Grand  Gallery  came  to  life  at  night,  and 
that  the  dead  and  gone  princes  and  princesses 
got  out  of  their  frames  and  wandered  from 
room  to  room. 

My  father,  who  was  quite  Florentine  in  his 
ways,  kept  up  an  Italian  entourage  as  much  as 
possible  and  preferred  Italian  serv^ants  to  any 


MY  OWN  STORY  43 

others.  He  had  a  wonderful  personality,  and 
I  feel  it  is  only  right  for  me  to  pay  tribute  here 
to  the  memory  of  this  best  of  fathers  and  most 
charming  of  men.  I  loved  him  devotedly;  he 
was  our  playmate  and  entered  into  our  nursery 
life  before  we  commenced  the  dreary  treadmill 
existence  which  was  called  education  for  our 
future  positions.  My  happiest  recollections  of 
my  dear  father  are  of  the  times  when  I  sat  by 
his  side  with  my  brothers,  listening  to  marvel- 
lous fairy  tales  for  which  he  painted  illustra- 
tions, and  cooking  all  kinds  of  sweet  "messes" 
over  the  nursery  fire.  He  was  often  away  from 
Salzburg,  as  he  used  to  shoot  with  the  Emperor 
Francis- Joseph  and  the  Crown  Prince  Rudolph, 
who  was  his  especial  friend  and  confidant. 
When  he  was  at  home  he  was  an  indefatigable 
worker;  he  managed  all  his  Tuscan  properties 
(the  Grand  Dukes  were  great  landowners  and 
some  of  their  Italian  estates  are  still  in  the 
family),  but  since  his  death  they  are  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Emperor,  who  now  sees 
to  nearly  everything  in  connection  with  them. 
Papa  was  up  and  about  every  morning  at  four; 
he  worked  all  day,  and  only  allowed  himself 
the  relaxation  of  a  walk  or  drive.  He  had  a 
strong  constitution   and  an  iron  will,    though 


44  MY  OWN  STORY 

liis  temperament  was  emotional  and  excitable, 
and  he  was  adored  by  his  seventy-five  servants, 
for  he  was  a  just  master  who  entered  into  all 
their  personal  interests  and  did  not  know  the 
meaning  of  false  pride. 

Religion,  as  practised  in  Roman  Catholic 
Courts,  was  regarded  by  my  father  with  good- 
humoured  contempt.  "Religion,"  he  used  to 
say,  "est  seulement  religion  d 'etiquette. "  He 
lived  in  a  world  of  his  own  ideals,  but  was, 
with  all  his  imaginative  tendency,  a  very  prac- 
tical man,  orderly  and  punctilious  to  a  fault, 
and  quite  as  business-like  as  any  banker  or 
lawyer.  He  liked  to  know  how  every  detail  in 
his  household  arrangements  was  carried  out, 
from  the  decoration  of  the  State  apartments 
down  to  the  management  of  the  kitchens;  he 
was  at  home  ever3rwhere — and  he  made  his 
presence  felt.  He  and  I  were  absolutely  in 
sympathy  with  each  other;  we  were  not  demon- 
strative, but  a  perfect  understanding  prevailed, 
and  all  I  know  that  is  useful  I  learnt  from  him. 

Our  nursery  days  were  over  when  we  reached 
the  age  of  seven,  and  when  the  knell  of  that 
happy  time  soimded  we  commenced  our  educa- 
tion. Since  I  have  left  Palaces  and  Courts  I 
have  been  greatly  amused  at  the  interest  taken 


MY  OWN  STORY  45 

by  the  public  in  the  doings  of  royalty,  and 
especially  of  royal  children.  The  English  news- 
papers teem  with  the  sayings  and  doings  of 
little  princes  and  princesses,  and  display  breath- 
less interest  in  their  pony-riding,  boat-sailing, 
and  other  amusements,  which  are,  after  all, 
only  the  usual  occupations  of  well-bred  healthy 
children;  but  I  take  it  that  these  accounts  are 
inserted  to  please  that  worthy  British  middle- 
class  whose  gods  are  respectability  and  royalty. 
I  wonder  if  the  public  has  the  faintest  idea 
of  what  the  "education  de  prince"  really  means. 
As  the  Christian's  life  is  supposed  to  be  a  con- 
stant preparation  for  eternity,  so  the  life  of 
young  princes  and  princesses  is  a  constant 
preparation  for  their  future  position.  The  day 
when  we  bade  good-bye  to  otir  nurses,  we  also 
bade  good-bye  to  childish  things,  and  were 
handed  over  to  tutors  and  governesses  to  be 
moulded  into  the  most  approved  patterns  of 
deportment.  We  were  supposed  never  to  ques- 
tion anything,  but  merely  to  become  clever 
automata.  How  tired  I  used  to  get  of  hearing, 
"Don't  get  into  a  carriage  in  that  way;"  or, 

"Imperial  Highness  ,  if  ever  you  wish  to 

become  a  queen,  it  will  never  do  to  enter  a  room 
as  you  do — practise  repose. "     It  was  always  the 


46  MY  OWN  STORY 

same;  we  were  not  educated  for  ourselves,  but 
merely  to  live  in  the  eyes  of  the  world ;  our  young 
lives  were  sacrificed  to  position,  and  we  were 
not  supposed  to  possess  any  individuality  or 
display  any  emotion. 

Those  who  possess  a  grain  of  understanding 
will  realise  how  awful  such  a  life  is  to  the  un- 
fortunate possessors  of  temperaments,  and  I 
think  some  of  the  Habsburgs,  myself  included, 
have  suffered  martyrdom  through  the  tortures 
of  this  restricted  and  artificial  upbringing.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  are  placid  unimaginative 
royalties,  who  take  everything  that  comes  with 
complete  indifference.  I  have  cousins  who  are 
quite  content  to  possess  distasteful  husbands 
w^ho  were  chosen  for  them.  They  seem  quite 
happy  on  the  royal  treadmill,  and  no  doubt 
their  lives  are  in  man}^  ways  preferable  to  the 
storm  and  stress  which  comes  to  those  who  try 
to  open  palace-gates  and  find  the  road  to  free- 
dom. "What  will  the  people  say?  What  will 
the  people  think?"  That  was  the  parrot-cry 
that  we  heard  from  morning  to  night,  till  at 
last  w^e  learnt  to  look  on  the  people  as  a  sort 
of  fetish,  to  be  placated  at  any  cost,  and  if 
ever  one  said,  "Bother  the  people,"  one  was 
told  of  the  fate  which  overtook  vinconventional 


MY  OWN  STORY  47 

royalties  who  dared  to  trifle  with  the  populace, 
and  my  own  beautiful  ancestress,  Marie- An- 
toinette, was  always  held  up  as  an  example 
to  me.  My  governess  persisted  in  saying  that 
if  Marie-Antoinette  had  never  played  at  being 
a  farmer's  wife  she  would  never  have  been 
guillotined.  On  the  other  hand,  the  docility 
of  Marie-Louise  was  always  quoted  as  the 
proper  spirit  for  a  princess.  If  she  had  defied 
the  Emperor  of  Austria  and  joined  Napoleon  in 
his  lonely  exile,  she  wotild  have  had  a  very 
uncomfortable  time,  and  would  have  found 
Longwood  far  less  pleasant  than  Parma;  but  as 
she  obeyed  her  family,  she  was  made  Duchess 
of  Parma,  had  plenty  of  money,  unlimited 
toilettes,  and  her  subsequent  marriage  ventures 
with  semi-plebeian  husbands  met  with  no  active 
disapproval. 

I  felt  somehow  that  I  should  never  become  a 
Marie-Louise.  My  inner  self  was  always  strug- 
gling for  mastery  over  outward  forms  and 
ceremonies,  and  my  father  was  the  only  person 
in  whom  I  was  able  to  confide;  but  even  he, 
with  all  his  large  ideas,  was  a  little  borne  by 
tradition.  I  remember  when  I  asked  him  if  I 
might  learn  the  violin,  he  replied,  "No,  it  is 
not  decent  for  a  princess  to  play  the  violin." 


48  MY  OWN  STORY 

Fortunately  for  myself,  however,  I  was  par- 
tially enlightened,  when  still  a  child,  about  the 
boredom  of  society  at  other  Courts,  for  at  the 
age  of  fourteen,  part  of  my  training  consisted 
in  having  to  attend  the  State  dinners,  where  I 
was  purposely  placed  next  uninteresting  people, 
in  order  to  teach  me  the  art  of  making  conver- 
sation, a  valuable  accomplishment  for  any  royai 
personage  to  acquire. 

My  first  defiance  of  authority  happened  when 
I  was  deHvered  into  the  hands  of  my  governess. 
I  was  sisterless  for  eight  years,  and  had  there- 
fore been  the  close  associate  and  playmate  of 
my  four  brothers,  who  always  aided  and  abetted 
me  in  mischief. 

One  day  I  had  been  unusually  troublesome, 
and  as  a  punishment  I  was  told  I  should  not 
be  allowed  to  have  my  swimming  lesson,  which 
was  indeed  a  deprivation,  as  I  thoroughly 
enjoyed  sw^imming.  That  afternoon  I  went  out 
for  a  walk  with  my  governess  and  my  brothers 
to  a  small  lake  near  Salzburg,  which  was  a 
favotirite  summer  rendezvous  of  the  "smart" 
Salzburgers.  There  were  a  number  of  small 
pleasure-boats  on  the  lake,  and  we  had  our 
own  boat  waiting  for  us.  My  governess  sat 
in  it,  looking  the  picture  of  pompous  responsi- 


MY  OWN  STORY  49 

bility,  and  outwardly  we  were  the  best  be- 
haved royal  children  in  the  world.  Our  progress 
greatly  interested  the  crowd,  and  probably 
this  was  what  led  to  my  brother  Leopold  whis- 
pering to  me,  "Let's  do  something."  An 
inspiration  seized  me.  Turning  to  my  governess 
I  said,  "May  I  bathe,  please?" 

"^ATiat,  Imperial  Highness?  No — quite  im- 
possible." 

" May  I  jump  in  now,  please?"  I  asked  again, 
to  the  subdued  accompaniment  of  joyous  giggles 
from  my  brothers. 

"No." 

I  wasted  no  more  time,  but  dived  out  of  the 
boat,  fully  dressed  as  I  was,  and  swam  about, 
to  the  consternation  of  the  spectators  on  shore, 
and  to  the  furious  dismay  of  my  worthy  govern- 
ess, who  screamed:  "Come  out,  you  bad  girl!" 
one  moment,  and  scolded  my  delighted  brothers 
the  next. 

However,  I  was  able  to  get  back  without 
accident,  and  arrived  at  the  palace  wet  but 
still  defiant.  As  I  went  up  the  great  marble 
staircase,  I  met  the  Emperor's  brother,  the 
Archduke  Ludwig- Victor,  who  stared  at  me 
in  great  astonishment,  and  finally  burst  out 
laughing. 


50  MY  OWN  STORY 

"Well,  Louisa, "  he  said,  "what  on  earth  have 
you  been  doing?" 

"I  've  been  taking  my  bath, "  I  replied. 

"It  looks  like  it,"  he  answered,  surveying 
me,  while  pools  from  my  dripping  clothes  were 
rapidly  forming  on  the  stairs;  "and  it  seems  to 
me,"  he  continued,  "that  you  always  will  do 
as  you  like,"  and  giving  me  a  good-natured  pat 
on  my  wet  shoulders  he  went  his  way. 

\\nien  I  reached  my  bedroom  I  had  an  exces- 
sively unpleasant  interview  with  mamma.  She, 
too,  looked  at  me  in  astonishment,  and  when 
she  found  words  she  said:  "Onl}''  one  thing  is 
possible,  Louisa,  and  that  is  to  send  for  the 
doctors  at  once,  for  you  must  certainly  be 
mad." 

Left  alone  with  my  governess  I  remarked: 
"You  see  what  your  'punishment'  has  done. 
It  was  quite  useless,  and  you  need  never  try 
and  stop  my  swimming  lessons  again." 

My  education  was  indeed  a  strenuous  one. 
I  worked  nine  hours  a  day,  and  was  obliged  to 
go  in  for  the  regular  university  course.  Every 
year  I  had  to  attend  the  examinations  at  Salz- 
burg, and  I  well  remember  a  particular  history 
examination  when  I  was  about  fourteen.  I  was 
asked    some    questions    about    Maria-Theresa, 


MY  OWN  STORY  51 

and  to  everybody's  astonishment  I  said  loudly: 
"I  think  IVlaria-Theresa  was  quite  right  to 
choose  a  husband  for  love,  and  not  be  forced  into 
marrying  any  one — that  's  a  stupid  thing  to 
do."  But  I  stopped  abruptly,  awed  by  the 
genuine  dismay  of  the  horrified  professors,  and 
my  own  history  master  turned  pale  at  the 
thought  of  the  interview  with  my  parents, 
which  was  bound  to  follow  as  soon  as  they 
heard  of  my  tirade. 

No  outsider  can  imagine  how  uneventful  my 
life  was  as  a  child  and  young  girl.  Salzburg 
itself  is  a  dull  town,  but  the  palace  was  duller 
than  a  week  of  English  Sundays.  No  light 
literature  was  allowed;  we  saw  no  newspapers 
except  Catholic  ones;  we  were  never  allowed  to 
visit  picture  exhibitions,  and  only  at  rare  inter- 
vals were  we  taken  to  concerts  or  to  the  theatre. 
It  was  an  absolutely  conventual  existence,  and 
its  similarity  to  such  a  life  was  enhanced  by 
the  perpetual  presence  of  the  priestly  element 
within  our  gates,  while  our  collection  of  rosaries 
and  prayer-books  would  have  done  credit  to 
an  ecclesiastical  museum. 

The  whole  atmosphere  was  redolent  of  reli- 
gion, and  the  Jesuits  were  the  "Power  behind 
the  Throne"  at  Salzburg,  as  indeed  they  are  at 


52  MY  OWN  STORY 

most  Catholic  Courts^ — indeed  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  give  any  idea  in  these  pages  of  the 
influence  and  authority  of  the  priests.  They 
concern  themselves  in  all  the  family  affairs, 
and  their  influence  is  to  be  feared  and  deplored, 
as  it  is  not  always  exerted  for  good.  Their 
calling  makes  one  apt  to  forget  that,  after  all, 
they  are  only  men,  and  so  their  advice  is  not 
infrequently  sought  on  most  intimate  things, 
often  with  lamentable  results. 

I  have  no  wish  to  attack  the  priests,  although 
I  have  suffered  greatly  at  their  hands.  There 
are  priests  of  the  character  that  makes  saints 
and  martyrs,  but  there  are  others  who  take 
advantage  of  their  calling  to  do  and  say  things 
utterly  abhorrent  to  good  taste  and  decency, 
and  many  a  young  princess  has  to  answer  at 
confession  questions  which  should  not  be  asked. 
Should  she  ever  hint  that  she  will  complain 
of  these  personal  questions,  she  is  met  with  the 
threat  that  her  confessor  would  in  that  event 
inform  her  parents  that  he  had  sorrowfully 
observed  evidences  of  a  perverted  nature,  which 
would  make  the  convent  the  proper  place  for 
her. 

Palace  life  is  a  network  of  petty  tyranny,  for 
everybody  preys  on  and  tries  to  rule  over  some 


MY  OWN  STORY  53 

one  else.  The  entourage  seem  to  think  that 
their  mission  in  Hfe  is  to  issue  orders  and  to 
ape  their  masters,  so  that  even  as  a  child  I 
was  made  aware  that  envy,  hatred,  and  malice 
are  greatly  in  evidence  in  a  palace,  and,  in  short, 
that  the  Christian  virtues  are  rare  there. 


CHAPTER  III 


All  about  my  relations — My  uncles — Duke  Charles  of 
Parma;  his  collection  of  watches — A  rare  speci- 
men— The  teeth  that  did  not  fit — A  ducal  wardrobe 
— ''  All-a- blowing ' '  —  Visits  and  visitors  —  Vienna 
— The  Empress  Elizabeth;  how  her  hair  was  dressed — 
A  long  walk — The  Empress  presents  me  with  the 
Stern  Kreuz  Order — Our  last  meeting. 


35 


^ 


CHAPTER  III 


npHOUGH    my    paternal   grandmother    pos- 
sessed  no  pronounced  characteristics,  my 
father  and  his  brothers  were  most  interesting 
and  uncommon  personaUties. 

My  uncle,  the  Archduke  Ludwig-Salvator, 
is  a  highly  original  person  and  a  gifted  and 
learned  man.  He  has  spent  his  entire  life  in 
research  of  every  description,  and  is  an  authority 
on  geography,  natural  history,  and  botany. 
He  owns  a  beautiful  villa  on  the  island  of 
Majorca,  called  ''Miramar"  after  the  Emperor 
of  Austria's  castle;  there  he  leads  what  he 
considers  the  ideal  "simple  life,"  the  main 
element  of  which  consists  in  doing  exactly  what 
he  likes.  He  lives  like  a  peasant,  wears  sandals 
and  loose  linen  trousers;  his  skin  is  burnt  a 
deep  copper  colour  and  he  works  indefatiga- 
bly  in  his  vineyards  and  gardens.  He  has  a 
boundless  love  of  Natiire,  is  perfectly    pagan 

57 


58  MY  OWN  STORY 

in  his  theories,  and  I  think  I  am  right  in  saying 
that  he  is  a  Sun  Worshipper. 

My  Uncle  Ludwig  is  on  excellent  terms  with 
the  country  folk,  but  strangers  are  anathema 
to  him.  He  was  a  great  friend  and  kindred 
spirit  of  the  late  Empress  Elizabeth,  who  occa- 
sionally came  as  a  welcome  guest  to  his  mountain 
retreat.  The  Archduke  loves  his  yacht,  which 
is  always  kept  in  readiness  lest  at  any  moment 
he  should  decide  to  put  to  sea.  He  was  once 
wrecked  off  the  African  coast,  where  he  and  the 
crew  narrowly  escaped  capture  by  some  of  the 
hostile  tribes.  He  wrote  a  book  about  this 
adventure,  entitled  Shipwreck:  or  a  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,  and  in  it  he  describes  his  yacht 
as  being  "the  only  place  that  I  can  call  home." 

I  think  I  am  imbued  with  some  of  his  love  of 
solitude,  for  I  am  never  so  happy  as  when  I  am 
alone  with  Nature,  "the  world  forgetting,  by 
the  world  forgot." 

My  father's  second  brother,  the  Archduke 
Charles-Salvator,  also  disliked  the  restrictions 
of  Court  life.  His  chief  amusement  consisted 
in  riding  about  in  omnibuses  and  trams,  and 
these  democratic  tastes  caused  the  municipal 
authorities  many  anxious  moments.  He  was 
a  wonderful   craftsman,   and  his   "locksmith" 


MY  OWN  STORY  59 

work  was  a  marvel  of  delicate  ingenuity.  His 
son,  the  Archduke  Francis-Salvator,  who  is 
very  clever,  married  the  Emperor  of  Austria's 
daughter,  the  Archduchess  Valerie,  and  my 
uncle  died  only  nine  days  before  his  first  little 
granddaughter  was  born. 

The  Archduke  John,  my  father's  youngest 
brother,  better  known  to  the  world  as  "John 
Orth,"  has  had  such  a  romantic  career  that  I 
shall  later  deal  with  it  at  length.  My  father's 
sisters  were  not  so  interesting  as  their  brothers. 

My  maternal  great-grandfather,  Duke  Charles 
of  Parma  and  Lucca,  was  one  of  the  most 
amusing  and  original  of  men.  He  had  estates 
in  Saxony,  to  which  he  retired  when  he  became 
weary  of  Cotirt  life.  He  was  always  a  Protestant 
at  Meissen,  where  his  favourite  castle  was  situ- 
ated, and  when  he  was  remonstrated  with  on 
the  subject  by  his  spiritual  advisers  he  re- 
plied: "When  I  go  to  Constantinople,  I  shall 
be  a  Mahometan;  in  fact,  wherever  I  go  I 
always  adopt,  for  the  time  being,  the  religion 
of  the  country,  as  it  keeps  me  so  much  more 
in  tone  with  the  local  colour-scheme."  He 
was  very  erratic,  and  it  is  said  that  one  day 
he  accepted  an  invitation  to  lunch  and  promised 
to  arrive  in  twenty  minutes  at  his  host's  house, 


6o  MY  OWN  STORY 

but  suddenly  changed  his  mind,  ordered  his 
carriage,  and  went  off  to  Parma,  then  a  three 
days'  journey,  without  a  word  of  explanation. 
His  servants  were  never  sure  of  his  comings 
and  goings.  Everything  in  the  castle  was  kept 
in  readiness  for  him,  and  the  sound  of  his  travel- 
ling-carriage was  the  only  intimation  ever  re- 
ceived that  he  had  returned  from  one  of  his 
long  absences. 

He  was  a  great  admirer  of  the  fair  sex,  and 
there  is  a  window  in  the  castle  at  Meissen  which 
is  almost  completely  covered  with  the  auto- 
graphs of  the  ladies  who  came  there.  Between 
him  and  his  wife  terms  of  courtesy  and  coldness 
existed.  The  Duchess  bored  him  to  tears. 
She  was  devote  and  excessively  plain,  and  when- 
ever he  returned  from  a  visit  to  Parma,  he  was 
wont  to  exclaim:  "II  faut  absolument  que 
j'aille  me  retremper  aupres  d'une  jolie  femme 
apres  ce  tombeau  de  mon  illustre  compagne. " 

I  made  my  great-grandfather's  acquaintance 
at  Nice  when  I  was  twelve  years  old,  and  I  can 
clearly  recall  our  meeting.  I  went  to  see  him 
with  my  mother,  and  the  first  thing  that  struck 
me  when  I  entered  the  room  was  the  ticking  of 
inntmierable  watches,  for  the  Duke  delighted 
in  antique  watches,  of  which  he  had  a  collec- 


MY  OWN  STORY  6i 

tion  of  about  six  hundred.  They  were  all 
kept  wound  up,  and  they  were  beautiful  and 
rare  specimens  of  the  watchmaker's  art.  Some 
of  the  watches  lived  in  perpetual  seclusion  in 
chamois-leather  cases,  as  the  subjects  painted 
or  enamelled  on  them  were,  although  beautiful, 
slightly  risque  examples  of  the  genre  Louis 
XV.  I  believe  the  old  Duke  was  often  asked 
why  he  gave  these  very  "fast"  timepieces  a 
place  in  his  collection,  and  he  invariably  an- 
swered: "Well,  I  adore  Nature;  and  as  Nature 
was  created  to  be  admired,  why  should  n't  I 
admire  it  on  my  watches?" 

When  I  was  presented  to  my  great-grandfather, 
I  saw  him  as  an  elegant  old  man,  who  was  nearly 
blind.  He  passed  his  hand  over  my  face,  and 
said:  "Ah,  you  resemble  Marie- Antoinette,  but 
you  have  a  happier  expression."  Then,  with 
a  sudden  burst  of  energy,  he  added:  "Regarde 
moi  bien,  Louise,  je  suis  une  bete  rare.  Je  suis 
ton  arriere  grand-pere  qui  est  maintenant  vieux 
et  degoutant. " 

I  looked  at  him,  and  said  decidedly:  "You 
must  have  been  very  handsome,  great-grand- 
father." 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  replied,  "and  I  enjoyed  life, 
and  doubtless  you  will  enjoy  it,  too,  little  one. " 


62  MY  OWN  STORY 

"I  hope,"  said  mamma,  coldly,  speaking  for 
the  first  time,  "that  Louise  will  not  follow  in 
your  footsteps,  grandfather.'* 

The  old  man  laughed  at  this  tribute  to  his 
younger  days.  When  I  said  good-bye  to  him, 
he  gave  me  a  lovely  jewelled  box  for  a  souvenir, 
and  before  changing  the  subject  I  must  tell 
another  story  about  him.  As  I  have  said,  he 
dearly  loved  a  pretty  face,  and  one  day  he  was 
asked  to  a  dinner-party  to  meet  som.e  really 
beautiful  women.  The  DulvC  was  then  quite 
an  old  man,  and  he  was,  I  regret  to  say,  tooth- 
less, for  he  would  never  wear  artificial  teeth. 
However,  the  possibility  of  renewing  his  con- 
quests so  appealed  to  him  that  he  went  to  a 
dentist  and  was  supplied  with  a  set  of  false 
teeth  for  the  eventful  banquet.  All  went  well 
at  first;  the  Duke  smiled  at  the  fair  ones,  and 
rejoiced  that  he  could  smile  so  freety;  but 
suddenly,  without  any  warning,  something 
went  wrong  with  the  plate,  and  he  was  unable 
to  shut  his  mouth.  He  remained  in  this  un- 
enviable position  for  a  few  minutes,  and  the 
guests  began  to  fear  he  had  been  seized  with  a 
fit,  but  when  he  found  he  could  not  close  his 
jaws  he  wrenched  out  the  teeth  in  an  access 
of  fury,  and  flting  them  to  the  other  side  of 


MY  OWN  STORY  63 

the  room  where  they  remained  until  after  dinner, 
when  the  servants  swept  them  up. 

My  uncle,  Duke  Robert  of  Parma,  kept  all 
his  murdered  father's  wardrobe  at  the  Castle 
of  Wartegg,  and  I  never  saw  such  a  wonderful 
collection  of  clothes.  Duke  Charles  had  been 
a  great  dandy,  and  his  passion  for  fine  apparel 
was  somewhat  like  that  of  Queen  Elizabeth  of 
England.  There  were  endless  uniforms,  smart 
suits  for  all  occasions,  and  English  creations 
specially  designed  for  the  rather  flamboyant 
taste  of  young  bloods  of  that  period.  Once 
a  year  all  the  clothes  were  taken  out  of  cup- 
boards and  wardrobes,  and  hung  up  on  lines  in 
the  great  courtyard  and  in  the  castle  gardens 
to  be  aired.  I  happened  to  be  at  Wartegg  dur- 
ing one  of  the  yearly  airings,  and  the  sight  was 
unforgettable.  A  high  wind  was  blowing,  and 
as  the  trousers  and  coats  became  inflated,  they 
presented  the  appearance  of  a  regiment  of 
swinging  headless  bodies  endowed  with  a  gro- 
tesque semblance  of  life. 

The  first  time  I  ever  travelled  was  in  1876, 
when  we  all  went  to  Paris.  I  remember  what 
an  exciting  journey  it  was,  and  I  think  we  must 
have  been  very  troublesome,  for  we  insisted 
upon  crawling  up  into  the  luggage-racks  whence 


64  MY  OWN  STORY 

we  were  dislodged  with  difficulty.  We  arrived 
at  Paris  in  the  evening,  and  I  know  that  a  great 
family  gathering  met  us  at  the  station,  but 
beyond  that  my  impressions  of  Paris  are  very 
vague. 

As  I  grew  older,  I  often  used  to  accompany 
my  father  on  his  shooting  expeditions,  and, 
thanks  to  his  tuition,  I  became  a  fairly  good 
shot,  and  could  bring  down  a  chamois  without 
much  difficulty.  I  loved  those  times;  the  in- 
vigorating mountain  air,  the  free  life,  the  com- 
panionship of  my  beloved  father,  all  gave  me  a 
taste  of  liberty,  and  I  was  sorry  when  the  time 
came  to  return  to  the  priest-ridden  palace  of 
Salzburg.  We  had  no  fixed  summer  residence; 
sometimes  we  went  to  Bohemia,  sometimes  to 
Lindau,  and  occasionally  to  my  grandmother's 
residence  near  Gmunden— the  Villa  Orth — 
which  my  Uncle  John  had  built  for  her,  modelled 
on  the  style  of  a  Pompeiian  villa.  It  was  a 
beautiful  place,  with  a  glass-covered  courtyard 
and  replete  with  artistic  treasures. 

The  Emperor  of  Austria's  father,  the  Archduke 
Franz-Karl,  lived  in  another  part  of  the  palace  at 
Salzburg,  and  I  remember  as  a  child  of  six  dining 
with  the  kind  old  man,  and  seeing  the  Empress 
I^^Iaria-Anna,  wife  of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand, 


MY  OWN  STORY  65 

who  abdicated  in  favour  of  his  nephew  Francis- 
Joseph  in  1848.  The  Empress  was  rather  odd- 
looking,  for  she  would  not  discard  the  crinoline 
or  flounced  skirts  of  the  early  'fifties,  and  as  her 
millinery  was  also  of  that  period  she  looked 
somewhat  archaic.  Ferdinand  was  an  epilep- 
tic, and  had  a  distressing  fit  on  his  marriage 
night.  My  mother  once  met  him  at  dinner 
when  she  visited  the  Castle  of  Hradschin  from 
Carlsbad.  He  was  then  quite  mad,  but  as  he 
was  harmless  he  was  allowed  to  meet  and  see 
members  of  his  family.  Mamma  knew  that,  al- 
though every  dish  was  offered  to  him,  for  form's 
sake,  he  had  strict  orders  to  refuse  those  which 
his  medical  advisers  considered  unwholesome. 
When  mamma  helped  herself  to  some  nuts,  the 
Emperor  looked  greedily  at  her  plate  but  re- 
fused nuts  himself.  Suddenly  he  said,  "All 
right,  if  I  'm  not  allowed  to  have  any — I  '11 
take  them,"  and  then  and  there  he  grabbed  all 
mamma's  nuts,  much  to  her  dismay. 

Royal  visitors  occasionally  came  to  Salzburg. 
I  remember  the  Crown  Prince  Rudolph  of 
Austria  and  his  bride,  Princess  Stephanie  of 
Belgium,  coming  to  see  the  Archduke  Franz- 
Karl.  Leopold,  King  of  the  Belgians,  and 
Princess  Clementine  accompanied  them;  Clem- 


66  MY  OWN  STORY 

entine  was  a  little  girl  at  the  time,  and  I  re- 
member admiring  her  pretty  embroidered  dress 
tied  with  a  rose-pink  sash,  and  her  long  brown 
hair  which  flowed  over  her  shoulders.  This  was 
quite  a  gala  visit  for  Salzburg,  and  there  was 
much  excitement,  and  an  imposing  display  of 
fireworks. 

I  also  saw  Queen  Amelie  of  Portugal  when  she 
passed  through  Salzburg  with  her  mother  the 
Comtesse  de  Paris.  I  gave  her  all  my  youthful 
admiration,  for  she  was  so  sweet  and  charming, 
and  I  thought  she  looked  very  pretty  in  her 
tailor-made  costume. 

The  Shah  of  Persia  also  visited  Salzburg, 
and  I  was  much  impressed  when  I  saw  him 
riding  through  the  streets  on  a  Vv^hite  horse  with 
its  mane  dyed  red,  while  an  attendant  held  a 
large  umbrella  over  him.  The  Persians  were 
most  uncleanly  in  their  habits.  They  slaugh- 
tered animals  and  roasted  them  whole  on  the 
inlaid  marble  floors,  so  that  every  one  was 
devoutly  glad  when  the  visit  came  to  an  end. 

I  went  to  Vienna  when  I  was  eleven,  for  the 
somewhat  prosaic  purpose  of  having  "my  teeth 
seen  to."  I  shall  never  forget  my  first  impres- 
sion of  the  Austrian  capital.  It  was  perfectly 
overwhelming,  for  at  Salzburg  we  lived  years 


MY  OWN  STORY  67 

behind  the  times,  and  I  saw  trams  and  electric 
light  at  Vienna  for  the  first  time.  The  great  event 
which  took  place  during  my  stay  there  was  the 
unveiling  of  a  montiment  to  my  heroine  Maria- 
Theresa,  and  on  this  occasion  nearly  all  the 
Habsburgs  met.  I  was  very  much  impressed, 
and  wrote  a  long  letter  about  it  to  my  brother 
Leopold.  We  often  went  to  the  Hofburg,  where 
I  once  had  a  glimpse  of  the  Empress  Elizabeth  as 
she  glided  through  a  corridor,  looking  like  some 
beautiful  ghost.  She  always  attracted  m.e 
strangely,  and  it  may  have  been  that  some  kind 
of  subtle  sympathy  between  her  past  troubles 
and  my  future  ones  drew  us  together. 

The  Empress  was  really  a  lovely  woman,  and 
her  hair  was  exquisite.  When  it  was  unbound 
it  simply  enveloped  her,  and  one  maid  was  spe- 
cially selected  to  dress  it.  The  coiffure  was  car- 
ried out  in  rather  a  strange  way.  The  carpet 
in  the  dressing-room  was  covered  with  white 
linen  sheeting,  and  the  Empress  sat  on  a  low 
chair  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  The  maid  was 
dressed  in  white,  and  a  most  curious  proceeding 
took  place  when  the  process  was  over  of  brushing 
and  combing  the  luxuriant  tresses  and  braiding 
them  into  the  elaborate  plaits  affected  by  the 
Empress.    The  maid  collected  and  counted  every 


68  MY  OWN  STORY 

hair  that  remained  in  the  brush  and  comb,  and 
active  search  was  also  made  on  her  dress  and  on 
the  carpet  for  any  other  hairs,  which  had  fallen 
out.  The  number  was  then  told  the  Empress, 
who  was  exceedingly  displeased  if  she  thought 
too  many  hairs  had  come  out  during  the  "dress- 
ing,"  and  the  maid  had  a  mauvais  quart  d'heure 
in  consequence. 

The  Empress  had  many  eccentricities,  mostly 
well  known  to  the  public,  but  I  remember  hearing 
that,  on  one  occasion,  when  she  was  stopping  at 
Lainz,  she  indulged  in  a  very  fatiguing  escapade. 
She  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  her  "Greek 
Reader"  with  her  on  her  walks  in  the  lovely 
woods  and  park  which  surroimd  the  castle,  and 
she  rarely  went  beyond  them.  One  evening 
she  ventiured  outside,  but  as  she  had  a  silent  fit 
on,  the  Reader  had  perforce  to  be  silent  also,  and 
for  eight  hours  of  the  night  the  Empress  walked 
roimd  Vienna,  wrapped  in  her  own  sad  and 
gloomy  thoughts,  and  was  only  recalled  to  her- 
self and  her  surroimdings  when  day  broke  and 
she  found  that  she  was  outside  her  own  domain 
with  a  very  patient  and  footsore  Reader  in 
attendance. 

I  saw  the  Empress  Elizabeth  in  May,  1889, 
after  the  tragedy  of  Meyerling,  when  I  went  to 


MY  OWN  STORY  69 

receive  from  her  the  Stern  Kreuz  Order.  This 
Order  is  always  given  to  Austrian  Archduchesses 
when  they  attain  their  majority,  and  marks 
their  formal  presentation  at  the  Court  of  Vienna. 
I  went  to  the  Hofburg  with  my  mother,  and  the 
Empress  received  us  in  special  audience.  She 
was  dressed  in  the  deepest  black.  Her  face, 
which  looked  out  like  some  pale  snow-fiower  from 
the  folds  of  her  heavy  crepe  veil,  showed  traces 
of  incessant  weeping,  and  she  had  a  nervous 
habit  of  constantly  wiping  the  corners  of  her 
mouth  with  her  handkerchief. 

She  was  very  kind  to  me  when  I  thanked  her 
for  presenting  me  with  the  Order,  and  I  felt  the 
sharp  contrast  between  myself  in  all  my  youth 
and  this  sad  mother  who  seemed  to  have  com- 
pletely finished  with  the  splendour  and  gaiety 
of  the  life  to  which  my  Stem  Kreuz  Order  was 
the  passport. 

I  never  again  saw  her  alive.  When  I  stood  by 
her  coffin  in  the  Imperial  vault  of  the  Capuchins, 
I  felt  that  she  was  happy  at  last,  and  I  like  to 
imagine  her  spirit  roaming  untrammelled  in  the 
Elysian  fields,  exchanging  thoughts  with  Heine, 
and  reunited  to  her  much -beloved  Rudolph. 

Few  people  really  understood  the  Empress, 
and  her  excessive  shyness  was  often  attributed 


70  MY  OWN  STORY 

to  pride  or  artificiality.  Many  troubles  had 
chilled  her  emotions,  and  she  became  a  prey  to 
the  spirit  of  unrest ;  but  as  a  beautiful  woman 
and  a  devoted  mother  EHzabeth  of  Austria  has 
had  few  equals. 


CHAPTER  IV 


Marriage  projects — Much  of  a  muchness— Dom  Pedro 
— My  first  visit  to  Saxony — The  Castle  of  Moritzburg 
— The  Cohurg  alliance — "Aunt  Coffee- Mill" — A 
screaming  interview. 


7X 


CHAPTER  IV 


/y /I  OTHERS  who  possess  daughters  are  alike  all 
^  ^  *  the  world  over  when  it  becomes  a  question 
of  finding  husbands  for  them,  although  the  ma- 
trimonial projects  of  "royalties"  present  diffi- 
culties which  do  not  occur  in  the  marriages  of 
subjects. 

Luckily  for  most  princesses  the  question  of 
their  looks  is  not  generally  of  vital  importance. 
Religion  and  essential  health  for  future  mater- 
nity are  the  chief  factors  in  a  proposed  match. 
Inclination,  affinity,  and  love  are,  of  course,  de- 
sirable adjuncts,  but  they  are,  I  am  afraid,  very 
often  absent  from  royal  marriages. 

I  do  not  wish  to  imply  that  a  princess  is  forced 
to  accept  the  first  suitor  who  presents  himself. 
She  can  choose  her  future  husband  within  certain 
limits,  but  as  most  princes  and  kings  are  very 
much  ahke,  choice  is  not  a  difficult  matter  after 
all.  Part  of  our  education  is  to  accept  without 
question  whatever  lies  upon  the  knees  of  the 
gods,  and  although  every  princess  doubtless  at 

73 


74  MY  OWN  STORY 

some  time  dreams  of  an  ideal  Prince  Charming, 
she  rarely  meets  him,  and  she  usually  marries 
some  one  quite  different  from  the  hero  of  her 
girlhood's  dreams. 

I  used  to  ask  my  married  cousins  if  they  had 
ever  been  in  love,  and  whether  their  husbands 
were  affectionate  and  devoted  in  a  solitude  a 
deux,  but  I  always  received  the  same  reply : 

"Oh,  Louisa,  how  can  you  ask  such  questions? 
One  does  not  discuss  these  subjects."  So  my 
curiosity  remained  unsatisfied.  I  supposed,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  I  should  be  married  some 
day,  and  I  devoutly  hoped  that  mamma  and  papa 
would  find  me  a  husband  with  whom  I  should  be 
in  sympathy. 

Mamma's  matrimonial  campaign  on  my  be- 
half began  when  I  was  sixteen.  The  Empress  of 
Brazil,  who  was  my  great-aunt,  had  a  nephew, 
Dom  Pedro,  and  she  thought  he  would  make  me 
a  most  suitable  husband.  She  confided  her 
plans  to  mamma,  who  lost  no  time  in  taking 
me  to  Baden-Baden,  where  the  Empress  and 
Dom  Pedro  were  staying.  I  had  no  idea  why 
we  were  going  to  see  my  great-aunt,  but  I 
somehow  felt  I  was  out  for  inspection;  indeed 
my  brothers  teased  me,  and  said  I  should  soon 
find  out  that  I  had  been  sold  to  an  unknown 


MY  OWN  STORY  75 

husband,  and  this  greatly  enraged  me.  How- 
ever, I  found  Dom  Pedro  quite  a  nice  boy, 
though  we  did  not  fulfil  the  matrimonial  hopes 
of  our  relations.  He  merely  looked  on  me  as 
an  amusing  girl,  and  we  spent  most  of  oiu*  time 
romping  about  in  the  gardens. 

Poor  Dom  Pedro!  Three  years  after  our 
meeting  he  went  mad,  and  he  js  now  under  re- 
straint in  a  castle  somewhere  in  Austria. 

In  the  summer  of  1887,  my  parents,  my  two 
brothers,  and  myself  went  to  stay  at  the  Castle 
of  Pillnitz ;  and  on  this  visit  to  Saxony  I  saw  my 
future  husband,  Prince  Frederick- August,  for  the 
first  time. 

My  brothers,  as  usual,  teased  me  about  getting 
married.  "You  will  see,  Louisa,"  they  said, 
"that  you  will  be  cooped  up  in  Saxony  as  Queen 
one  day."  I  secretly  determined  that  I  should 
not  be  forced  into  doing  anything  or  marrying 
any  one  I  did  not  like,  but  at  the  same  time  I  re- 
solved to  be  watchful  and  find  out  all  I  could  of 
what  was  going  on  around  me. 

Queen  Carola  was  very  sweet  to  me,  and  gave 
a  ball  in  my  honour.  I  was  wildly  excited,  as 
this  was  the  first  real  ball  to  which  I  had  ever 
been.  Naturally  my  toilette  was  the  great  ques- 
tion, and  I  eventually  chose  a  gown  of  pink 


76  MY  OWN  STORY 

mousseline  de  sole,  with  a  tiny  decolletage,  and 
very  short  sleeves.  I  took  two  hoiirs  to  dress, 
and  I  remember  how  girHsh  and  happy  I  was, 
and  what  a  thrill  of  innocent  vanity  I  felt  when 
I  saw  my  reflection  in  the  long  mirror.  My 
brown  hair  was  plaited  and  entwined  with  pale 
pink  roses,  and  some  of  mamma's  beautiful 
jewels,  lent  to  me  for  this  great  occasion,  were 
displayed  on  my  dainty  gown. 

Prince  Frederick- August  was  only  twenty-one, 
and  looked  handsome  and  gallant  in  his  uniform 
of  blue  and  gold.  We  danced  together  several 
times,  and  I  remember  saying  to  him  when  he 
laid  aside  his  busby  on  a  chair,  "\\Tiat  a  fine 
bouquet-holder  for  my  cotillion  flowers ;  I  '11  put 
them  in  it."  I  did  so,  and  gradually  the 
busby  became  quite  full  of  flowers !  I  thought 
Frederick- August  most  charming,  and  indeed  I 
was  favourably  impressed  by  everybody  and 
everything  on  this  visit  to  Saxony. 

I  was  greatly  struck  with  the  magnificent  cas- 
tles belonging  to  the  King  of  Saxony — that  of 
Moritzburg  especially.  It  is  situated  in  the  midst 
of  a  lake,  and  is  surrounded  by  woods  on  all  sides. 
The  castle,  which  formerly  belonged  to  August 
the  Strong,  Elector  of  Saxony,  is  a  massive  build- 
ing with  four  round  towers,   and   the  interior 


MY  OWN  STORY  77 

is  a  treasure-house  of  pictures,  tapestries,  and 
antique  furniture.  Many  of  the  State  rooms 
have  walls  hung  with  exquisite  Cordova  leather, 
and  the  great  dining-hall  is  decorated  with  sport- 
ing trophies.  Here  is  kept  the  famous  drinking- 
cup  made  from  a  stag's  antlers,  out  of  which, 
according  to  time-honoured  tradition,  every 
guest  at  Moritzburg  must  drink. 

The  horn  is  filled  with  champagne,  but  it  is  very 
difficult  to  drink  all  the  wine  as  custom  demands. 
It  nms  into  the  antlers  in  a  very  "tricky"  way, 
and  those  people  who  only  manage  to  drink  part 
of  it  are  only  credited  with  achieving  the  "  Little 
Cascade."  More  fortimate  individuals  who 
tilt  the  horn  at  the  proper  angle  drink  the  whole 
without  accident,  and  achieve  the  honour  of  doing 
the  "Great  Cascade."  A  very  interesting  book 
is  kept,  going  back  for  a  hundred  years,  in  which 
are  recorded  the  names  of  those  who  have  drunk 
out  of  the  horn  cup,  and  whether  they  were 
"Great  or  Little  Cascaders. " 

Moritzburg  is  a  fine  sporting  estate.  The 
woods  abound  with  wild  boars  and  stags,  and 
there  are  also  immense  game  preserves.  There 
is  a  charming  villa  in  the  Park  which  was  given 
by  the  Elector  August  to  Count  Marcolini,  his 
favourite  Minister;  it  contains   most  beautiful 


78  MY  OWN  STORY 

eighteenth-century  furniture,  and  one  room  is 
full  of  stuffed  birds  of  every  description. 

We  were  shown  the  villa  by  a  very  original 
caretaker,  who  waxed  enthusiastic  on  the  subject 
of  the  stuffed  birds,  and  kept  on  repeating, 
"Look  at  that  pheasant — there  he's  quite  a 
baby,  there  he 's  getting  older,  and  is  n't  he 
splendid  in  that  case  when  he  is  grown  up." 

Before  leaving  Saxon}'-,  we  went  to  the  military 
manoeuvres,  but  I  did  not  see  Prince  Frederick- 
August,  who  for  some  reason  had  a  bad  attack 
of  shyness,  and  kept  out  of  the  way.  We 
thoroughly  enjoyed  our  visit,  although  nothing 
matrimonial  came  of  it,  and  four  years  passed 
before  the  question  of  my  marriage  was  again 
seriously  discussed. 

In  the  winter  of  1891,  I  went  on  a  visit  to 
Vienna  with  papa,  and  it  was  understood 
that  I  should  again  meet  Prince  Ferdinand  of 
Bulgaria.  Oiu'  first  meeting  had  taken  place  at 
one  of  the  family  dinners  when  I  found  myself,  a 
child  of  fourteen,  sitting  between  Ferdinand  and 
his  brother  Philip  of  Coburg.  The  two  princes 
paid  no  attention  to  me,  but  quite  ignored  my 
presence,  and  talked  across  me  to  each  other. 
Their  conversation  was  carried  on  in  Hungarian, 
which  I  understood  perfectly,  and  it  consisted  of 


MY  OWN  STORY  79 

more  or  less  "after-dinner  stories, "  and  vivid  ac- 
counts of  their  various  love  affairs  quite  unsuited 
for  childish  ears.  I  sat  perfectly  silent  until 
dinner  was  nearly  over,  and  then,  turning  to 
Ferdinand,  I  said  in  fluent  Hungarian:  "Don't 
you  think  it  is  rather  unwise  to  talk  about  your 
affairs  in  a  foreign  language  without  first  making 
sure  that  your  neighbour  does  not  understand 
it  ?  "  Ferdinand  was  somewhat  taken  aback ,  and 
I  continued:  "Don't  be  disturbed,  I  could  not 
possibly  repeat  your  secrets."  At  this  remark 
both  brothers  biirst  out  laughing,  and  Philip 
cried:  "Bravo!  she's  a  wonderful  little  girl, 
let 's  make  a  friend  of  her."  "  There 's  nothing  so 
useful,"  I  retorted,  "as  to  make  a  friend  of  a 
person  you  are  afraid  of."  Ferdinand  eyed 
me  critically,  and  said  to  Philip  in  a  voice 
charged  with  meaning:  "I  didn't  know  they 
grew  such  nice  little  plants  at  Salzburg."  He 
always  called  me  "  Ma  petite  cousine  polyglotte," 
after  this,  and  took  a  great  interest  in  my  doings ; 
and  whenever  he  and  his  mother,  Princess 
Clementine,  came  to  Salzburg,  he  always  con- 
trived to  have  a  few  words  with  me. 

My  father  was  very  much  in  favotu  of  a  mar- 
riage between  myself  and  Prince  Ferdinand,  but 
my  mother  greatly  objected  to  a  Coburg  alliance, 


8o  MY  OWN  STORY 

as  she  detested  the  family  root  and  branch. 
Had  I  not  been  attracted  to  Prince  Frederick- 
August,  of  whom  somehow  or  other  I  was 
always  thinking,  I  might  perhaps  have  not 
been  averse  to  becoming  Princess  of  Bulgaria, 
for  Ferdinand  was  handsome,  rich,  and  not 
imamusing. 

I  was  very  much  interested  in  my  parents' 
plots  and  counterplots,  and  I  reflected  that,  as 
usual,  the  looker-on  saw  most  of  the  game. 
One  day  papa,  who  was  most  anxious  for  me 
to  see  Princess  Clementine  of  Coburg,  asked  me 
to  go  for  a  drive  with  him,  and  said,  some- 
what shyly:  "Suppose,  Loiiisa,  that  we  go  and 
see  Aunt  Clementine. " 

"With  pleasure,  papa,"  I  answered,  trying 
to  hide  a  smile  at  his  transparent  ruse,  for  I 
knew  how  joyous  he  was  at  scoring  off  mamma. 

We  arrived  at  the  Palais  Coburg,  a  gorgeous 
mansion,  and  waited  for  Aunt  Clementine  in  a 
beautiful  salon,  full  of  flowers  and  costly  bric-a- 
brac.  Papa  was  very  nervous,  but  I  was  per- 
fectly cool,  and  presently  my  aunt  arrived. 
The  Princess  was  short  and  fat,  but  withal  not 
inelegant,  and  very  much  grande  dame.  She 
had  piercing  blue  eyes,  a  prominent  nose,  and 
the  brains  and  judgment   of   an  exceptionally 


MY  OWN  STORY  8i 

clever  man.  Unfortunately,  Aunt  Clementine 
was  extremely  deaf  and  used  a  large  ear-trum- 
pet which  we  irreverently  called  "The  Coffee- 
Mill";  indeed,  in  our  family  she  was  known 
as  "Aunt  Coffee-Mill,"  and  as  she  possessed 
an  exceptionally  mauvaise  langue,  my  brothers 
declared  that  she  groimd  the  reputations  of 
others  to  powder  in  her  "  Coffee- Mill. " 

When  Princess  Clementine  came  into  the  sa- 
lon she  looked  at  me  with  kindly  scrutiny,  and 
said  to  papa:  "Elle  est  bien  jolie,  et  je  serais 
contente  de  I'avoir  comme  fille. "  She  then  took 
papa's  arm  and  went  into  the  next  room,  where 
they  commenced  what  I  can  only  describe  as  a 
shrieking  duet.  Papa  shouted  his  hopes  and 
plans  about  me  into  the  ear-tnmipet,  and  Aunt 
Clementine  shrieked  aloud  her  matrimonial 
designs  for  Ferdinand,  and  in  this  amusing  way 
I  heard  their  best-laid  schemes. 

Papa  did  not  speak  much  French,  and  Princess 
Clementine  did  not  speak  much  Italian,  so 
whenever  their  respective  meanings  became 
slightly  obsciu-ed  they  shouted  at  each  other 
louder  than  ever.  At  last  the  noise  got  on  my 
nerves,  and  I  was  on  the  point  of  giving  a  shriek 
on  my  own  account  to  relieve  my  overwrought 
feehngs,  but  luckily  controlled  the  impulse  and 


82  MY  OWN  STORY 

contented  myself  with  re-arranging  a  bowl  of 
lilies  on  the  table  near  me. 

On  the  way  home  I  looked  quizzically  at 
papa,  who  was  slightly  hoarse  after  his  imac- 
customed  vocal  efforts.  He  returned  my  glance 
and  smiled.  I  pressed  his  hand,  and  said, 
laughing:  "Your  secret  is  mine,  and  I  '11  not 
say  a  word  to  mamma,  but  why  on  earth  did  n't 
you  bring  a  megaphone  if  you  wanted  to  speak 
to  Aunt  Coffee-Mill?" 

In  the  early  svimmer  of  1891,  I  went  again 
to  Vienna  with  mamma,  who  wished  to  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  Maria  of  Zell.  I  have  an  idea 
that  she  imagined  the  Virgin  of  Zell  might 
look  favourably  on  her  marriage  projects.  Any- 
how, while  we  were  lunching  at  a  tiny  inn  on 
the  road  to  Zell  a  telegram  was  handed  to 
mamma,  who  told  me  that  Prince  George  of 
Saxony  and  his  son  Prince  Frederick-August 
were  coming  to  Lindau  on  June  19th,  and 
that  we  must  try  to  get  out  of  going  to  see 
Princess  Clothilda  and  her  brother  Prince 
Ferdinand. 

It  was  then  June  nth,  and,  sad  to  relate, 
mamma  did  not  accomplish  her  pilgrimage. 
Like  most  religious  things  it  went  to  the  winds 
when  worldly  matters  arose,  and  our  thoughts 


MY  OWN  STORY  83 

veered  round  to  marriage  and  the  two  prospec- 
tive husbands  I  was  so  soon  to  meet. 

Mamma  decided  that  we  had  better  return 
to  Vienna  and  pay  a  flying  visit  to  Princess 
Clothilde,  and  so,  a  day  or  two  afterwards,  we 
went  to  Buda-Pesth  and  thence  to  Alcuth, 
where  the  Princess  has  a  magnificent  castle. 

A  carriage  and  four  met  us  at  the  station; 
the  coachman  wore  the  picturesque  Hungarian 
costimie  and  flourished  an  enormous  whip. 
Then  commenced  a  wild  drive  which  lasted 
for  two  hours;  we  tore  over  sands  and  fields 
where  no  road  had  ever  been;  nobody  can 
imagine  what  it  was  like,  but  I  managed,  not- 
withstanding all  the  bumping  and  shaking,  to 
admire  the  rough  country,  the  old-world  villages 
where  the  storks  nested  on  the  houses,  and  the 
pretty  costumes  worn  by  the  peasants.  It  was 
very  hot,  and  we  were  glad  when  at  last  the 
castle  and  civilisation  came  in  sight.  I  wore  a 
pink  cambric  dress  and  a  pretty  pink  straw  hat 
profusely  trimmed  with  Parma  violets,  and  I 
remember  anxiously  wondering  what  impression 
I  should  make  on  Princess  Clothilde,  who,  with 
her  husband  and  daughters,  received  us  with 
great  cordiality. 

Soon  afterwards  Ferdinand  appeared.     I  al- 


84  MY  OWN  STORY 

ways  think  that  in  him  the  theatrical  world  has 
lost  a  fine  comic-opera  king,  for  he  looks  as 
though  he  ought  to  be  on  the  stage,  singing 
about  himself  and  wooing  a  stage  princess  in 
the  approved  manner.  On  this  occasion,  when 
he  wooed  me,  Ferdinand  was  most  elaborately 
attired  in  a  light  grey  suit  with  an  ultra  chic 
Panama  hat.  He  constantly  waved  his  well- 
manicured  hands,  and  displayed  the  costly 
rings  which  glittered  on  his  fingers.  He  atti- 
tudinised like  a  narcissus,  and  kept  on  posing 
until  he  thought  doubtless  I  was  sufficiently 
impressed  by  his  fine  figure,  his  rings,  and  last, 
but  not  least,  his  smart  yellow  boots;  he  then 
suggested  a  walk  in  the  castle  gardens  and,  of 
course,  I  readily  accompanied  him.  Mamma 
went  with  us  out  of  respect  for  the  proprieties, 
but  it  was  very  warm  and  we  soon  left  her 
behind,  looking  angry  and  alarmed  at  seeing 
me  alone  with  the  man  she  detested. 

Ferdinand  cut  some  flowers,  and  as  he  ar- 
ranged a  posy  of  red  and  white  roses  he  said, 
pointing  to  them:  "Do  you  know  that  these 
roses  and  their  leaves  represent  the  Bul- 
garian national  colours?  Are  they  not  a  pretty 
combination?" 

"Quite  charming,"  I  answered  demurely. 


MY  OWN  STORY  85 

"Would  you  like  to  see  Bulgaria,  Cousin 
Louisa?" 

"Oh  yes,  if  it  's  not  too  uncivilised." 

"Is  that  all  you  can  find  to  say?"  he  cried 
in  an  excited  tone.  "Then  /  will  speak.  I 
have  known  you  long  enough  to  appreciate 
your  good  qualities,!  admire  you — I  feel  lonely." 

"Well — get  married,"  I  said  lightly. 

"I  have  thought  of  it,  but  I  have  met  with 
no  success,"  replied  Ferdinand;  "and  that  is  a 
good  thing,  for  now  I  know  that  you  alone  are 
the  woman  I  can  love." 

"Well,"  said  I  with  mock  earnestness,  "let 
me  assure  you  at  once  that  I  do  not  and  could  not 
love  you,  and  should  not  be  happy  as  your  wife." 

"Oh,  Louisa,"  he  pleaded.  "I  would  do 
everything  for  you." 

"It  would  be  of  no  use,"  I  answered. 

"But  I  love  you  so  dearly,"  he  persisted. 

I  lost  patience  with  him.  "Cousin,"  I  said, 
"do  realise  once  and  for  all  that  I  can  never 
love  you." 

"C'est  la  premiere  fois  qu'une  femme  me  dit 
cela,"  he  exclaimed.  "Be  wise,  Louisa;  think 
of  all  that  it  lies  in  my  power  to  give  you." 

"I  quite  realise  your  worldly  advantages,  but 
you  would  never  be  able  to  give  me  real  happi- 


86  MY  OWN  STORY 

ness.  Listen  Ferdinand,"  I  continued  seriously. 
"I  'm  sure  you  only  want  to  marry  me  because 
I  am  an  Austrian  Archduchess;  the  word  Arch- 
duchess stands  for  love  in  your  vocabulary,  and 
you  have  promised  your  Ministers  to  return 
to  Bulgaria  betrothed  to  one.  Well — /  shall 
not  marry  you.  You  'd  better  go  to  the  Duke 
of  Parma  and  ask  him  for  my  cousin,  Marie- 
Louise."  And  I  turned  and  left  him  looking 
the  picture  of  despair. 

Even  now  I  can  see  Ferdinand,  faced  with 
explanations  to  his  Ministers,  standing  in  that 
sunny  garden  among  the  roses  wringing  his 
large  white  hands  and  exclaiming: 

"Oh,  Mon  Dieu!     Mon  Dieu!" 

Later  in  the  afternoon  he  begged  mamma  to 
try  and  induce  me  to  change  my  mind,  but  she 
told  him,  with  a  great  deal  of  truth,  that  "when 
once  Louisa  has  made  up  her  mind,  neither 
God  nor  the  Devil  will  make  her  change  it." 

The  same  evening,  at  dinner,  I  sat  next  the 
Bulgarian  Lord  High  Chamberlain,  the  Count 
de  Bourboulon,  who  was  quite  an  interesting 
man;  and  as  Ferdinand  had  brought  several 
smart  young  Bulgarian  officers  in  his  suite,  the 
time  passed  pleasantly,  and  I  chattered  away 
to  my  heart's  content. 


MY  OWN  STORY  87 

Ferdinand  was  in  a  vile  temper,  and  when 
courtesy  obliged  him  to  drink  to  my  health,  he 
banged  his  glass  savagely  on  the  table  as  if  his 
one  idea  was  to  break  it;  he  sulked,  and  hardly 
spoke  at  all,  and  gobbled  bread  incessantly. 
From  time  to  time  he  sent  vindictive  glances  in 
my  direction  as  I  sat  making  myself  particularly 
agreeable  to  his  Minister  with  the  somewhat 
malicious  motive,  I  am  afraid,  of  endeavouring 
to  make  the  Count  realise  what  a  charming 
Princess  of  Bulgaria  I  should  have  made. 

After  dinner  we  made  our  adieus,  and  drove 
back  to  Alcuth  in  the  wild  manner  of  the 
morning.  We  got  into  the  waiting  train  before 
Ferdinand  arrived  at  the  station,  and  he  sent 
Count  de  Bourboulon  to  ask  us  to  give  him  the 
pleasure  of  our  company  in  his  coupe.  Mamma 
declined,  and  her  refusal  made  him  sulkier  than 
ever,  and  I  fear  he  must  have  made  things  very 
unpleasant  for  every  one  in  his  suite.  He  took 
my  advice,  however,  and  the  same  year  he  mar- 
ried my  cousin.  Princess  Marie-Louise  of  Parma, 
who  died  after  six  years  of  married  life.  His 
second  wife  is  Princess  Eleonore  of  Reuss,  who 
has  been  the  kindest  and  best  of  stepmothers 
to  my  cousin's  motherless  children. 


CHAPTER  V 


Domestic  scenes — Arrival  of  Prince  Frederick-August  of 
Saxony — /  accept  him  as  my  future  husband — Our 
betrothal — "A  Chevalier  sans  reproche'' — Marriage 
formalities — My  trousseau  and  jewels — /  bid  good- 
bye to  Salzburg — The  Hofburg — The  Act  of  Renunci- 
ation— My  wedding  day — "Golden  Roses'' — My  lit- 
tle trainbearer — A7t  old  superstition;  how  it  came 
true — We  leave  for  Prague — The  Emperor's  train  de 
luxe. 


89 


CHAPTER  V 


/^N  our  return  to  Vienna  we  went  to  my 
grandmother's  residence,  the  Villa  Orth, 
where  my  father  awaited  us,  and  there  was  a 
somewhat  unpleasant  scene  between  my  parents 
over  the  Bulgarian  fiasco,  which  had  greatly 
pleased  mamma.  Papa,  on  the  contrary,  was 
very  much  annoyed  at  my  refusal  to  accept 
Prince  Ferdinand,  and  I  think  he  dreaded  the 
interview  he  wotild  be  obliged  to  have  with 
Princess  Clementine,  who  went  nearly  mad 
with  rage  when  she  was  told  that  I  had  declined 
the  honour  of  a  Coburg  alliance. 

I  was  rather  alarmed  at  all  the  bad  temper 
displayed  simply  because  I  would  not  marry 
Ferdinand,  but  my  grandmother  consoled  me, 
saying:  "My  dear,  never  be  forced  into  doing 
anything  repugnant  to  you;  your  other  suitor 
will  doubtless  please  you  better,  and  I  hear 
that  he  is  quite  a  'good  boy.'" 

I  was  very  nervous  and  apprehensive  in  the 
overcharged  home  atmosphere,  and  I  wondered 

91 


92  MY  OWN  STORY 

with  a  terrified  wonder  whether  I  should  be 
obUged  ultimately  to  accept  my  parents'  choice 
of  a  husband  without  consulting  my  own  in- 
clinations. For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  felt 
the  dreadful  "trapped"  sensation  that  I  after- 
wards experienced  so  much,  and  I  cried  bitterly 
when  I  contrasted  my  position  with  that  of 
other  girls,  who  were,  as  I  imagined,  not  pre- 
cipitated into  matrimony,  but  were  allowed  a 
more  liberal  choice  of  a  husband  than  a  poor 
princess. 

From  Gmunden  w^e  went  to  Lindau,  and  on 
June  19th  my  future  husband  arrived,  accom- 
panied by  his  father  and  sister.  Prince  Fred- 
erick-August only  stayed  at  Lindau  two  days, 
but  before  leaving  he  proposed  formally  for 
my  hand.  When  papa  told  me  this,  and  asked 
me  what  answer  he  should  give  to  the  Prince, 
I  hesitated,  and  begged  for  time  to  think  it 
over.  I  considered  the  matter  in  all  lights;  I 
knew  that  my  parents  wished  me  to  marry, 
and  my  independent  spirit  demanded  a  larger 
area  in  which  to  think  and  act  than  my  life 
at  Salzburg  afforded.  I  wished  to  be  in  evi- 
dence somewhere,  and  my  ambitions  were 
pleased  with  the  prospect  of  becoming  a  queen, 
for  although  I  fully  recognised  the  hollowness 


Photo  by  Otto  Mayer,  Dresden. 

MY    husband;    king    FREDERICK-AUGUST   OF    SAXONY 

93 


MY  OWN  STORY  95 

of  royal  state,  I  was  romantic  enough  to  imagine 
that  a  princess  who  desired  to  enroll  her  name 
in  history  would  have  no  difficulty  in  making 
herself  a  "Power  for  Good."  My  girlish  dream 
was  to  win  the  affection  of  my  future  sub- 
jects; and  this  is,  perhaps,  the  only  dream  of 
mine  that  has  ever  become  a  reality,  for  even 
to-day,  exiled  and  lonely,  I  know  that  thousands 
of  loving  hearts  beat  for  me,  and  that  I  shall 
not  lose  my  sovereignty  over  the  affections  of 
my  beloved  Saxon  people,  who  have  remained 
loyal  to  me  and  have  never  failed  to  offer  me 
consolation  in  my  darkest  hours. 

I  told  papa  that  I  was  quite  willing  to  marry 
Prince  Frederick- August,  who  returned  to  Lin- 
dau  directly  the  news  was  communicated  to 
him.  Mamma  insisted  on  my  donning  a  very 
becoming  gown  to  celebrate  my  formal  be- 
trothal, so  I  awaited  the  Prince's  arrival  in  a 
pale  blue  silk  dress.  I  felt  nervous  and  excited, 
as  I  realised  that  I  had  now  crossed  the  Rubi- 
con, and  I  kept  on  repeating  to  myself,  "I 
wonder,  I  wonder  if  I  shall  be  happy?" 

When  Prince  Frederick -August  was  shown 
into  the  salon  where  we  were  assembled,  I 
forgot  my  own  heart-searchings  in  pity  for  his 
nervousness.     He  was  too  distrait  to  give  my 


96  MY  OWN  STORY 

parents  the  kiss  which  etiquette  demanded, 
but  advanced  towards  me,  blushing  furiously, 
and  bestowed  a  very,  very  shy  kiss  on  my 
forehead. 

After  that  first  ordeal  was  over,  we  recovered 
our  composure,  and  closer  acquaintance  with 
my  fia7ice  revealed  his  many  excellent  qualities 
of  heart  and  mind,  a  discovery  which  was  a 
source  of  great  joy  to  me,  for  I  now  felt  sure 
that  my  marriage  would  be  a  happy  one. 

Frederick- August  was  very  good-looking, 
tall  and  well  set  up,  with  an  open  expression, 
and  the  kindest  blue  eyes  in  the  world.  I  do 
not  think  that  a  better-hearted  man  exists;  he 
seemed  then,  as  he  is  now,  loath  to  believe  in 
wickedness  and  intrigue ;  he  looked  upon  women 
as  sacred  beings,  and  he  was  chivalrous  to  a 
fault.  His  good  qualities  have  been  his  worst 
enemies,  because  his  innate  nobility  has  always 
prevented  him  from  realising  what  designing 
minds  are  capable  of  contriving.  What  a  mis- 
fortune that  no  kindly  Fate  interposed  at  our 
betrothal,  to  warn  us  that  this  seemingly  ideal 
union  would  result,  ten  years  later,  in  my 
being  banished  from  my  home  through  the 
machinations  of  enemies,  and  that  I  should 
be  forced,  in  order  to  try  to  save  myself  from 


MY  OWN  STORY  97 

utter  ruin,  to  inflict  lifelong  suffering  on  the 
best  of  husbands! 

But  nothing  occurred  to  give  us  a  glimpse 
into  futurity.  I  had  been  much  pleased  with 
my  first  impressions  of  Saxony,  and  as  my 
father's  first  wife  was  a  Saxon  princess,  I 
naturally  felt  that  there  was  a  tie  between 
the  two  Houses  which  would  probably  make 
me  less  of  a  stranger  to  my  husband's  family 
than  would  otherwise  have  been  the  case.  So 
I  looked  at  my  future  through  the  rosiest  of 
glasses;  after  all,  I  reflected,  I  had  really  nothing 
to  trouble  about.  My  betrothed  husband  was 
young,  handsome,  and  devoted  to  me,  and 
even  if  he  was  a  trifle  shy  and  awkward  as  a 
lover,  these  traits  were  commendable,  for  they 
conclusively  proved  that  Frederick- August  had 
kept  "fancy  free,"  and  that  I  should  not  be 
confronted  with  any  spectres  of  the  past,  or 
hear  highly-coloured  accounts  of  affaires  de 
cceur  with  actresses  and  others. 

Although  my  parents  had  given  their  consent 
to  my  projected  marriage,  formal  permission  had 
to  be  obtained  from  one  mightier  than  they — 
namely,  the  head  of  the  Habsburgs,  the  Em- 
peror Francis- Joseph.  My  father,  therefore, 
telegraphed  to   him    saying:    "Je    demande  a 


98  MY  OWN  STORY 

votre  Majest6,  la  permission  de  donner  ma  fille 
Louisa,  en  mariage  au  Prince  Frederic- Auguste 
de  Saxe."  The  Emperor  (who  knew  all  about  it 
long  before  papa's  announcement)  replied  imme- 
diately that  he  was  very  pleased  to  hear  the  news, 
and  sent  us  both  his  affectionate  felicitations. 

The  important  preliminaries  were  now  settled, 
and  my  wedding  day  was  fixed  for  November 
2ist,  the  same  month  and  almost  the  same  date 
that  thirty-five  years  previously  had  seen  papa's 
marriage  with  Princess  Anna  of  Saxony. 

The  great  question  of  my  trousseau  was  now 
the  topic  of  the  hour,  and  while  my  father  was 
arranging  the  marriage  formalities  with  the  high 
Court  officials  at  Vienna,  mamma  and  I  were 
deep  in  the  mysteries  of  chiffons.  I  must 
confess  that  selecting  my  gowns  gave  me  ex- 
ceptional pleasure,  for,  unlike  most  girls  who 
choose  their  own  frocks,  and  nowadays  often 
those  of  their  mothers  as  well,  I  had  never 
hitherto  been  allowed  to  say  what  I  should 
like  to  wear,  but  had  been  obliged  meekly  to 
accept  what  was  given  me.  The  orders  for 
the  trousseau  were  placed  in  Vienna,  and  I  am 
sure  that  it  will  interest  all  women  to  know 
that  many  exquisite  jewels  were  included 
among  my  countless  wedding  gifts. 


MY  OWN  STORY  99 

The  Emperor  of  Austria  gives  each  Arch- 
duchess who  marries  with  his  consent  a  present 
of  100,000  florins;  and  in  addition  to  this  he 
gave  me  a  lovely  pearl,  sapphire,  and  diamond 
bandeau  for  the  hair.  My  bridegroom  gave 
me  a  splendid  set  of  jewels  which  had  belonged 
to  his  mother,  the  Infanta  Maria- Anna  of 
Portugal,  comprising  a  riviere  of  diamonds, 
and  some  bracelets  containing  miniatures  sur- 
rounded by  diamonds  of  his  great-grandparents, 
the  King  and  Queen  of  Portugal,  and  a  mag- 
nificent diamond  and  emerald  ring.  King  Al- 
bert of  Saxony  gave  me  a  diamond  riviere,  and 
I  was  presented  also  with  a  marvellous  tiara 
of  emeralds  and  diamonds  which  was  an  heir- 
loom in  the  Saxon  Royal  Family.  Mamma, 
too,  opened  both  her  heart  and  her  famous 
jewel-cases,  and  bestowed  many  lovely  gifts 
upon  me,  so  I  had  nothing  to  complain  of  on 
that  score;  in  fact,  I  felt  like  a  princess  in  the 
Thousand  and  One  Nights. 

The  weeks  between  June  and  November 
passed  quickly,  and  at  last  the  time  came  for 
me  to  say  farewell  to  Salzburg.  The  day  we 
left  for  Vienna  was  saddened  by  leavetakings, 
and  I  was  deeply  touched  to  see  how  much 
every  one  seemed  to  regret  parting  with  me. 


lOO  MY  OWN  STORY 

\ATien  we  arrived  at  Vienna  we  went  straight 
to  the  Hofburg,  where  we  were  to  stay  for  the 
wedding,  and  on  November  20th  I  was  obHged 
to  read  my  "Renunciation."  This  curious  cere- 
mony has  to  be  compHed  with  by  every  Austrian 
Archduchess  before  her  marriage,  and  is  a 
renunciation  of  her  rights  of  succession  under 
the  Sahc  law  to  the  throne  of  Austria.  It 
also  includes  the  renunciation  of  legacies  left 
by  the  members  of  the  Imperial  House,  a  wise 
plan,  designed  to  keep  the  family  money 
together. 

The  Act  of  Renunciation  was  performed  with 
all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  characteristic  of 
the  Austrian  Court.  At  eleven  on  the  morning 
of  November  20th,  my  father  escorted  me  to  the 
throne  room  at  the  Hofburg  where  the  cere- 
mony was  to  take  place.  I  wore  a  lovely  pink 
satin  gown  with  a  raised  design  on  it  of  lilies 
of  the  valley  and  white  violets,  and  a  page 
carried  my  train,  which  was  five  yards  long. 

The  throne  room  was  crowded.  In  all,  quite 
four  hundred  persons  were  present,  including 
my  bridegroom,  all  the  male  members  of  the 
Habsburg  family,  the  Ministers  and  high  offi- 
cials, the  generals,  and  the  representatives  of 
the  great  Austrian  nobility.     It  was  a  striking 


MY  OWN  STORY  loi 

ensemble,  with  the  elaborate  uniforms  worn  by 
the  men  and  the  lovely  jewels  and  toilettes  of 
the  ladies,  and  I  felt  a  thrill  of  pride  that  I 
was  a  Habsburg. 

The  Emperor  stood  before  the  throne  under 
a  canopy;  I  walked  to  the  last  step  of  the 
throne,  and  from  there  read  the  Act  of  Re- 
nunciation. A  State  luncheon  was  given  after 
the  ceremony  was  over,  and  the  remainder  of 
the  day  passed  in  a  whirl  of  excitement. 

On  November  2 1st,  I  woke  early  and,  woman- 
like, I  at  once  wondered  whether  it  was  a  fine 
day  for  my  wedding.  Alas!  it  was  a  morning 
of  fog  and  driving  rain,  and  I  felt  a  little  super- 
stitious dread,  which,  however,  speedily  van- 
ished in  the  all-absorbing  occupation  of  being 
attired. 

My  wedding-dress  was  a  lovely  and  unique 
gown  which  had  formerly  been  part  of  the 
trousseau  of  Princess  Anna  of  Saxony.  When 
my  half-sister  ]\iarie-Antoinette  died,  she  left 
us  her  jewels,  laces,  and  to  each  of  us  one  of 
her  mother's  unmade  Court  dresses,  and  the 
one  which  fell  to  me  was  so  beautiful  that  it 
had  always  been  destined  for  my  wedding- 
dress. 

The  material  was  white  moire  antique  with 


I02  MY  OWN  STORY 

golden  roses  and  their  leaves  embroidered  on 
it  in  high  relief ;  the  corsage  was  perfectly  plain, 
with  the  decolletage  de  cour,  worn  by  all  royal 
brides,,  and  the  long  and  heavy  train  was 
embroidered  with  garlands  of  roses.  The  tone 
of  time  had  given  a  lovely  tint  to  the  material, 
and  the  effect  of  the  shimmering  roses  was  per- 
fectly lovely  when  I  moved.  My  hair  was 
waved,  and  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  myrtle; 
behind  the  wreath  was  placed  a  diadem  of 
diamond  wheat  ears,  mamma's  present  to  me, 
and  from  under  the  diadem  flowed  my  lace- 
edged  tulle  veil. 

No  civil  ceremony  ever  takes  place  when  an 
Archduchess  is  wedded.  The  documents  re- 
lating to  the  marriage,  the  dowry,  and  the 
Deed  of  Renimciation  are  sent  to  the  country 
of  her  adoption,  but  the  religious  service  is  the 
only  one  recognised. 

As  soon  as  my  toilette  was  completed,  the 
procession  was  formed,  and  I  went  in  great 
state  to  the  Imperial  Chapel  of  the  Hofburg. 
The  rooms  through  which  I  passed  were  crowded 
with  people  and  lined  with  soldiers.  A  little 
page  dressed  in  red  and  gold  carried  my  train, 
and  I  wonder  whether  Count  Harrach  re- 
members   how    tired    he    became.     When    we 


MY  OWN  STORY  103 

reached  the  grand  staircase  I  happened  to 
look  round,  and  saw  that  he  had  a  very  flushed 
face  and  was  on  the  point  of  bursting  into 
tears,  as  train-bearing  was  too  arduous  a  task 
for  such  a  small  boy. 

I  felt  so  sorry  for  him  that  I  stopped  and, 
gently  disengaging  the  train,  put  it  over  my 
arm  instead — a  rather  undignified  action,  but 
I  really  could  not  bear  to  see  the  child's  dis- 
comfort. 

At  last  we  entered  the  chapel.  It  is  a  small 
Gothic  edifice,  very  dark  at  all  times,  and  on 
my  wedding-day  it  was  darker  than  usual. 
There  were  assembled  all  the  members  of  the 
Tuscan  and  the  Saxon  families,  and  the  Em- 
peror sat  on  a  throne  on  the  left  side.  The 
Empress  was  not  present.  The  Bishop  said 
Mass,  and  just  before  I  uttered  the  fateful  "I 
will,"  I  turned  to  the  Emperor  and  made  a 
deep  curtsey,  implying,  "Of  course,  with  your 
permission."  I  did  the  same  to  papa,  and 
then  said  "/  wilV  so  loudly  that  every  one 
was  quite  startled,  Frederick- August  included. 

Directly  the  service  was  over,  the  bridal 
cortege  reformed,  but,  as  we  came  last  this  time, 
we  stood  still  and  chatted  to  those  around  us. 
Frederick-August    wore    the    uniform    of    the 


104  MY  OWN  STORY 

Austrian  (King  of  Saxony's  Own)  Dragoons, 
which  became  him  admirably,  and  when  he 
looked  at  me  so  affectionately  with  his  kind 
blue  eyes,  I  felt  that  I  was  a  very  happy  girl 
indeed. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  delay  before  we 
managed  to  leave  the  chapel,  and  the  long 
Court  trains  worn  by  the  ladies  impeded  every- 
body's progress.  Three  of  the  Archdukes  who 
were  standing  close  to  me  became  so  impatient 
that,  in  order  to  find  another  way  out  of  the 
chapel,  they  jtmiped  over  my  train.  My 
brother-in-law,  the  Archduke  Otto,  noticed  this, 
and  said  to  me  in  rather  perturbed  tones,  "Do 
you  know  the  Habsbiu^g  superstition,  that  any 
one  who  jumps  over  a  bride's  train  dies  in  the 
same  year?" 

"Well,  it 's  November  now,  so  they  will  have 
to  be  quick  about  it,"  I  said,  trying  to  pass  it 
off  lightly,  for  I  saw  that  Otto  was  really  upset 
at  the  occurrence,  for  many  imcanny  things 
happen  to  us  Habsburgs. 

The  old  superstition  unfortunately  proved 
true.  A  fortnight  after  my  marriage,  the  Arch- 
dukes Sigismond  and  Ernest  died,  and  at  the 
end  of  December  they  were  joined  by  the  third 
one,  the  Archduke  Carl-Ludwig. 


MY  OWN  STORY  105 

After  the  wedding,  the  Emperor  gave  a 
luncheon.  I  sat  next  to  him,  and  he  was  in 
excellent  spirits,  perhaps  at  getting  another 
Archduchess  off  his  hands,  and  as  the  family 
followed  the  example  of  the  illustrious  head,  all 
stiffness  and  constraint  rapidly  disappeared, 
and  we  were  a  very  merry  party.  I  remember 
the  Archduke  Carl-Ludwig  slyly  telling  me 
that  he  quite  envied  Frederick- August. 

After  the  luncheon,  I  went  up  to  my  rooms 
and  changed  my  bridal  gown  for  a  grey  costume, 
a  black  jacket,  and  a  grey  feathered  hat.  The 
weather  was  still  wet  and  dismal,  and  as  we 
drove  to  the  railway  station,  I  felt  a  curious 
presentiment  of  coming  disaster  which  I  could 
not  shake  off.  My  common-sense  put  it  down  to 
overwrought  nerves  and  the  depressing  weather, 
but  my  imaginative  inner  consciousness  made  me 
regard  it  as  a  warning.  I  felt  utterly  miserable 
when  I  said  good-bye  to  papa.  I  clung  to  him 
crying,  and  he  mingled  his  tears  with  mine. 
Something  seemed  to  tell  us  both  that  my  girlish 
days  were  indeed  over,  and  that  with  them  I 
had  also  said  farewell  to  much  of  life's  happiness. 

The  Emperor  had  placed  his  private  train  at 
otir  disposal  to  travel  to  Prague,  where  he  had 
lent  us  the  Castle  of  Hradschin  for  our  honey- 


io6  MY  OWN  STORY 

moon.  The  Imperial  train  was  a  veritable 
palace  on  wheels;  there  were  bedrooms,  bath- 
rooms, rooms  for  the  smte  and  for  the  servants, 
a  special  coupe  for  the  chef  and  his  satellites, 
and  the  kitchen  arrangements  were  qtdte  ela- 
borate. I  was  dreadfully  tired,  and  my  head 
ached  painfully  as  a  result  of  crying,  and 
directly  the  train  was  in  motion  I  installed 
myself  in  an  easy  chair.  Frederick-August 
tucked  a  rug  carefully  round  me,  and  without 
any  more  ado  I  promptly  went  to  sleep.  When 
I  awoke  I  wondered  for  the  moment  where  I 
was,  but  I  soon  realised  that  instead  of  being 
Louisa  of  Tuscany  I  was  Princess  Louisa  of 
Saxony  on  her  wedding  journey. 

Frederick- August  came  and  sat  by  me.  We 
had  both  been  so  much  surrounded  with  eti- 
quette that  it  seemed  a  little  difficult  to  grasp 
the  fact  that  we  were  alone  with  no  one  to 
interfere  with  us,  and  that  we  w^ere  now  married. 
He  was  still  nervous  and  shy,  but  equally  de- 
voted and  charming,  and  I  felt  myself  becoming 
more  and  more  attracted  to  him. 

After  a  cheerful  little  supper  in  the  train, 
we  reached  Prague  at  eleven  o'clock —  My 
wedding-day  was  over. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Hradschin  and  its  surroundings — The  Ghetto  at  Prague — 
A  discourse  on  the  Chosen  People — We  go  to  Dresden 
— Popidar  excitement — Our  State  entry — Roses  every- 
where— The  Taschenherg  Palace — Rococo  ftirniture 
and  bad  taste  predominant — The  dog  that  bit  every  one 
— Excitement  and  fatigue — We  begin  to  settle  down — 
/  resolve  to  make  the  best  of  my  life. 


107 


CHAPTER  VI 


nPHE  Castle  of  Hradschin  is  beautifully 
situated  on  the  summit  of  a  hill  over- 
looking Prague  and  the  Elbe,  and  we  passed 
two  days  there  quite  pleasantly,  notwithstand- 
ing the  weather,  which  was  very  unfavoiu'able  for 
sightseeing.  We  visited  the  Ghetto  at  Prague, 
and  also  the  Jewish  cemetery,  which  remain  just 
as  they  were  in  mediaeval  days.  I  was  greatly 
impressed  by  the  cemetery,  and  the  thought 
passed  through  my  mind  how  strange  it  was 
that,  although  we  derive  a  great  deal  of  our  re- 
ligion from  Jewish  beliefs,  the  Jews  are,  as  a 
rule,  so  detested  and  despised,  although  in  Eng- 
land some  of  them  have  become  the  intimate 
friends  of  Royalty,  some  intermarry  with 
Christians,  and  adopt  old-English  surnames. 

I  have  always  had  an  instinctive  dislike  of  the 
Jew,  whether  I  know  him  as  an  Italian,  a  Ger- 
man, an  Englishman,  or  a  Scotchman.  I  do 
not  think  that  any  Hebrew  has  ever  become 

Irish.     Their  pronounced  Oriental  mannerisms 

109 


no  MY  OWN  STORY 

operate  against  them  in  social  life,  for  just  as 
"once  a  Russian  always  a  Russian,"  so  once  a 
Jew  always  a  Jew,  particularly  in  eating  and 
drinking.  But  with  all  their  objectionable 
qualities,  Jews  often  possess  the  genius  that 
makes  celebrated  musicians,  actors,  authors, 
and  lawyers.  The  Oriental  blood,  which  ac- 
counts for  their  occasional  social  lapses,  com- 
pensates for  these  in  bestowing  upon  them  a 
glowing  imagination  and  artistic  instincts,  and 
it  is  a  pity  that  art  is  not  the  ruling  passion  of 
the  race  instead  of  money. 

On  November  24th  we  left  Prague  for  Dresden. 
It  was  a  memorable  journey  for  me,  and  one 
which  I  shall  never  forget.  From  the  Bohemian 
frontier  to  Dresden  is  three  hoiirs  by  rail,  but 
all  the  way  from  the  frontier  until  we  reached 
Dresden,  the  people  were  massed  on  both  sides 
of  the  line,  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  of  me  and  my 
husband,  and  I  could  see  innumerable  handker- 
chiefs waving,  and  hear  frantic  "Hochs"  as  the 
train  passed. 

We  stopped  at  every  tiny  station  en  route,  and 
I  received  quantities  of  bouquets,  which  were 
usually  presented  to  me  by  little  girls  dressed 
in  white,  who  recited  poems  welcoming  me  to 
Saxony. 


MY  OWN  STORY  in 

I  felt  absolutely  overwhelmed  with  kindness, 
and  I  had  never  seen  anything  like  this  display 
of  spontaneous  affection.  I  caressed  the  dear 
children  from  sheer  gladness  of  heart,  and  was 
only  too  delighted  when  the  people  pressed 
round  and  tried  to  touch  me.  It  was  really  a 
triumphal  journey,  and  I  thought  how  foolish 
I  had  been  to  take  any  notice  of  my  presenti- 
ment of  coming  trouble.  "Surely,"  I  reasoned, 
"no  unhappiness  can  possibly  be  mine  in  a 
country  whose  people  have  taken  me  to  their 
hearts.  If  they  as  strangers  already  love  me, 
my  husband's  family  will  love  me  too,  and  I 
shall  be  the  happiest  woman  in  the  world."  I 
began  to  plan  all  I  would  do  for  good,  and  I  made 
up  my  mind  that  I  would  always  be  a  friend 
and  comforter  to  those  who  asked  for  my  help 
and  sympathy,  even  if  the  suppliants  were  the 
meanest  beggars  in  the  streets.  I  would  never 
be  an  "inaccessible"  royal  personage,  hearing 
and  speaking  through  other  people,  and  never 
would  I  be  influenced  from  doing  what  I  knew 
by  instinct  was  right. 

Comforted  and  reassured  by  these  pleasant 
reveries,  I  arrived  at  Dresden  in  a  glow  of 
happiness.  There  we  were  given  a  tremendous 
reception.     Every   one   seemed   delirious   with 


112  MY  OWN  STORY 

joy;  the  people  were  madly  excited,  and  I 
was  myself  carried  away  with  astonishment  and 
delight  at  the  enthusiastic  welcome  accorded 
to  a  girl  of  twenty-one  by  the  generally  un- 
emotional poptilace. 

The  State  carriage  awaited  us  outside  the 
station.  It  was  a  magnificent  historical  vehicle 
painted  in  vemis  Martin,  and  drawn  by  eight 
horses,  not  unlike  the  State  carriage  used  by 
the  English  monarchs  at  their  coronations.  We 
drove  off,  escorted  by  a  guard  of  honour,  and 
surprise  followed  surprise  as  we  passed  through 
the  town.  Although  it  was  November,  there 
were  roses  everywhere,  and  the  place  looked  like 
one  huge  garden.  The  roofs  were  black  with 
people,  who  showered  roses  on  us  as  we  passed, 
and  the  lamp-posts  were  covered  with  people 
clinging  to  them,  while  others  were  seated  on  the 
iron  brackets  which  supported  the  lamps.  The 
shop  windows  displayed  no  goods,  but  only 
people,  who  were  seated  and  standing  inside; 
the  occupants  of  the  windows  threw  flowers, 
and  from  all  sides  arose  a  volume  of  cheers 
and  shouts  of  joy. 

The  only  thing  that  annoyed  me  on  this  happy 
day  was  the  hateful  toilette  which  had  been 
"created"  for  my  State  entry  into  Dresden;  for 


MY  OWN  STORY  113 

although  I  had  been  allowed  a  certain  latitude 
of  choice,  mamma  had  absolutely  overruled  me 
when  it  came  to  the  question  of  my  gowns  for 
great  occasions.  So  I  now  wore  what  she  and 
the  couturiere  had  considered  the  correct  thing 
for  my  homecoming — an  odious  pale  blue  cloth 
dress  trimmed  with  dark  blue  velvet,  together 
with  a  fawn-coloured  braided  cape  profusely 
trimmed  with  jet.  It  sounds  to-day  as  horrid 
and  inartistic  as  it  was  then,  and  I  secretly 
thought  that  I  looked  like  a  bead-decked  bar- 
barian. "Horrible,"  I  said,  as  I  felt  the  jet 
chains  on  my  shoulders,  and  I  noted  the 
similarity  of  this  tight,  heavy  gown  to  the 
weight  and  restrictions  of  the  etiquette  I  so 
detested.  "If  this  were  really  etiquette  instead 
of  only  a  costume,  how  encimibered  I  should 
be,"  I  cynically  reflected. 

On  our  arrival  at  the  Town  Hall  we  were 
received  by  the  Mayor  and  Municipality  of 
Dresden,  and  there  were  many  speeches.  From 
the  Town  Hall  we  went  to  the  Royal  Castle, 
which  presented  an  interesting  and  imposing 
sight.  We  were  conducted  with  much  ceremony 
to  the  State  apartments,  where  the  Ministers 
and  the  Corps  Diplomatique  were  assembled, 
and  afterwards  presented  to  me,  and  although 


114  MY  OWN  STORY 

I  was  very  tired,  I  succeeded,  I  hope,  in  saying 
something  courteous  and  appropriate  to  every 
one.  Royalties  are  obHged  to  be  Spartans  in 
the  matter  of  endurance,  but  habit  becomes 
at  last  second  nature  to  us,  and  we  generally 
manage  to  refrain  from  displaying  in  public  any 
signs  of  bodily  or  mental  fatigue. 

When  the  reception  was  at  an  end,  we  went 
over  to  our  new  home  in  the  Taschenberg 
Palace,  part  of  which  had  been  given  to  us  for 
our  own  use.  The  chamberlain  of  oiu"  house- 
hold, Herr  von  Reitzenstein,  and  his  wife,  who 
was  my  lady-of-the-bedchamber,  accompanied 
us,  as  did  also  my  lady-in-waiting,  Fraiilein 
Elisa  von  Ende,  a  very  pretty,  charming,  and 
clever  girl. 

Painters  and  decorators  are,  like  dressmakers, 
most  unreliable  people,  so  when  I  arrived  inside 
the  Taschenberg  Palace,  it  was  only  to  find 
that  my  apartments  were  not  finished.  As  I 
entered  my  boudoir  two  workmen  walked  out 
of  it,  and  not  recognising  who  I  was,  one  of 
them  said  quite  crossly:  "Take  care  where 
you  're  going,  the  paint  is  n't  dry  on  the  doors 
yet!" 

Closer  inspection  proved  that  it  was  not,  and 
the  whole  suite  reeked  of  paint,  varnish,  and 


MY  OWN  STORY  115 

new  furniture.  The  rooms  were  stacked  with 
my  books  and  pictures,  which  had  been  sent 
from  Salzburg,  and  every  room  I  entered  looked 
most  uncomfortable. 

I  nearly  wept  with  vexation  when  I  saw 
how  inartistically  my  drawing-room  had  been 
arranged.  I,  who  love  the  antique,  was  con- 
fronted with  sham  rococo  Louis  XV.  furniture 
in  the  worst  possible  taste,  enamelled  white,  with 
pink  flowers,  and  the  general  effect  was  that  of 
an  iced  cake  decorated  with  pink  sugar!  Aly 
boudoir  was  another  monstrosity  in  sham  oak, 
with  maroon  damask  upholstery.  All  the  win- 
dows were  covered  with  heavy  net  blinds,  and 
the  damask  ciu"tains  were  adorned  with  top 
draperies  and  endless  ropes  and  tassels  of 
crimson  silk  cord.  It  was  altogether  detestable, 
and  I  inwardly  raged  at  the  bad  taste  of  the 
person  who  had  chosen  such  appalling  things. 

My  bedroom  and  dressing-room  were  not 
such  eyesores,  and  I  was  greeted  with  frantic 
barks  of  joy  from  my  little  dachshund,  who 
was  chained  to  a  heavy  chair  in  the  middle  of 
my  bedroom.  I  asked  the  reason  of  this,  and 
it  appeared  that  he  had  commenced  his  career 
at  Dresden  by  biting  every  one  who  came  within 
his  reach.     The  dog  was  overjoyed  at  seeing 


ii6  MY  OWN  STORY 

me,  and  with  a  tremendous  effort  he  upset  the 
chair,  and  dragged  it  to  where  I  was;  poor 
fellow,  he  felt  as  I  did,  slightly  overcome  in 
the  atmosphere  of  the  Taschenberg  Palace. 
Even  then  there  was  no  rest  for  me,  as  I  had 
to  dress  at  once  for  the  State  banquet  in  the 
evening,  and  I  felt  more  dead  than  alive  when 
it  was  over. 

The  next  fortnight  was  one  of  constant  fatigue ; 
deputations  arrived  daily  from  all  parts  of 
Saxony,  and  there  were  State  dinners  every 
night;  I  was  worn  out  with  fatigue,  and  never 
had  a  moment  to  myself. 

People  stood  for  hours  outside  the  palace 
waiting  to  see  us  come  out,  and  they  even  ran 
after  our  carriage  just  to  try  to  speak  to  us.  I 
became  quite  bewildered,  and  I  was  also  unaccus- 
tomed to  the  dialect  which  is  peculiar  to  Saxony. 

At  last  we  began  to  settle  down  after  all 
the  excitement,  and  I  was  able  to  put  my 
house  in  order.  I  commenced  by  trying  to 
discover  which  would  be  the  best  way  for  me 
to  lead  my  life;  I  felt  instinctively  that  my 
position  was  a  difficult  one,  for  certain  little 
occurrences  had  already  made  me  fully  aware 
that  I  should  not  lead  the  ideally  happy  exist- 
ence which  I  had  fondly  imagined  would  be  mine. 


CHAPTER  VII 


A  royal  family — My  father-in-law;  his  fanaticism — 
Princess  Mathilde—Her  love  of  ants— Her  piety- 
Dress  and  appearance — Her  curiosity— Prince  John- 
George— Lives  of  the  Popes— Prince  Max  of  Saxony 
—Cleanliness  and  godliness— Mutual  antagonism— 
"  C'est  malheureux  que  tu  sois  venue  dans  notre 
famille.^^ 


"7 


CHAPTER  VII 


A  T  the  time  of  my  marriage,  King  Albert  and 
his  wife,  Queen  Carola,  were  the  reigning 
sovereigns  in  Saxony,  and  my  father-in-law, 
who  was  a  widower,  was  his  only  brother. 
The  King  was  very  clever,  very  good,  and  most 
kind  to  me,  and  I  am  happy  to  think  that  his 
affection  never  changed.  He  used  to  call  me 
"Kleine"  (little  one),  and  he  said,  "What  I  like 
about  Louisa  is  her  absolute  frankness."  I 
did  not  see  a  great  deal  of  him  but  we  were 
on  terms  of  the  warmest  friendship. 

Queen  Carola  was  an  excellent  and  charitable 
woman,  who  occupied  herself  in  good  deeds.  She 
accompanied  her  husband  during  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war,  and  nursed  the  wounded  with  rare 
patience  and  skill.  She  was  remarkably  hand- 
some, but  somewhat  shy  and  reserved.  She  was 
childless,  and  this  was  put  down  by  the  people  to 
the  Jesuits,  who  were  supposed  in  some  way  or 
other  to  have  prevented  her  from  becoming  a 
mother.       Another  curious  idea  was  prevalent 

"9 


120  MY  OWN  STORY 

that  Providence  would  not  grant  a  son  to  the 
reigning  sovereign,  as  ever  since  the  days  of 
August  the  Strong  no  direct  heir  has  been 
born  to  a  King  of  Saxony,  and  my  eldest  son 
who  will  eventually  become  King  was  born 
when  his  father  was  not  yet  Crown  Prince. 

]\'Iy  father-in-law,  Prince  George  of  Saxony, 
was  a  strange  man  who  possessed  a  truly  re- 
markable personality.  In  appearance  he  was 
tall,  and  he  stooped  slightly;  his  head  was 
large  and  square,  and  the  most  striking  features 
of  his  face  were  his  cold,  small  e^'es,  which 
looked  out  suspiciously  from  under  his  bushy 
eyebrows.  When  I  first  knew  him  he  was 
rapidly  becoming  bald,  and  he  always  brushed 
his  scanty  grey  hair  most  carefully  over  the 
uncovered  place  to  try  and  hide  it,  but  with  no 
success.  He  was  imposing  in  uniform,  but  in 
mufti  he  looked  very  badly  dressed,  and  he 
wore  ugly  low  shoes  which  showed  too  much  of 
his  white  knitted  stockings.  Besides  fulfilling 
the  duties  of  a  father-in-law.  Prince  George  also 
took  upon  himself  those  of  a  very  strict  mother- 
in-law.  His  one  idea  in  life  was  religious  duty, 
and  he  carried  this  out  so  well  that  from  the 
day  I  arrived  in  Dresden,  I  was  literally  sur- 
feited with  piety.     He  was  an  intolerable  bigot. 


Photo  by  Otto  Mayer,  Dresden. 

MY    father-in-law:    the    late    king    GEORGE    OF    SAXONY 


121 


MY  OWN  STORY  123 

narrow  minded  to  a  degree,  and  he  could  be  a 
fanatic  on  occasion.  I  think  he  must  have 
suffered  from  some  kind  of  religious  mania,  for 
he  would  remain  for  hovirs  prostrate  before  the 
altar,  praying  fervently  to  all  his  special  saints. 
The  moment,  however,  that  he  was  outside 
the  chapel,  he  dropped  his  sanctity,  and  he 
never  practised  tolerance  or  forgiveness,  which 
to  my  mind  are  the  first  principles  of  true 
religion. 

Prince  George  ruled  his  children  through  fear, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  we  came  into  conflict 
over  a  question  of  religion.  Queen  Carola  had 
asked  me  to  act  as  her  deputy,  and  open  a 
bazaar  in  Dresden  which  was  held  to  raise 
funds  for  supplying  a  Protestant  church  with 
a  much-needed  new  altar.  I  of  course  assented, 
and  performed  what  was  to  me  a  very  pleasing 
task.  The  same  evening  we  had  a  family 
dinner-party,  and  I  could  see  that  my  father- 
in-law  was  furious  about  something.  It  was 
not  long  before  I  was  enlightened,  for  he  sud- 
denly turned  to  me  and  told  me  that  I  was  all 
that  was  reprehensible  and  an  apostate  to  my 
religion  because  I  had  opened  a  Protestant 
bazaar.  He  raged  and  stormed  like  one  pos- 
sessed, but  I  calmly  told  him  that,  although,  in 


124  MY  OWN  STORY 

this  case,  I  had  acted  on  behalf  of  the  Queen,  I 
should  never  hesitate  to  say  yes,  if  I  were  again 
asked  to  perform  a  similar  duty  on  my  own 
account.  My  remarks  added  fuel  to  the  fire, 
and  my  father-in-law  worked  himself  up  into 
such  a  furious  passion  that  he  seized  me  by 
the  arm  and  shook  me  before  every  one,  serv- 
ants included.  That  was  more  than  I  could 
endure;  I  left  the  table  on  the  plea  of  indispo- 
sition, and  it  took  all  my  husband's  powers  of 
persuasion  to  prevent  me  from  going  off  to 
Salzburg  the  same  night. 

Like  most  tyrants,  Prince  George  was  himself 
the  victim  of  tyranny,  being  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  priests,  who  made  him  dance  to 
whatever  tune  they  pleased  He  employed  them 
to  spy  upon  me,  and  even  sent  a  priest  from 
Dresden  to  say  Mass  when  we  were  in  the 
country,  in  order  to  report  my  doings  to  him, 
and  in  particular  to  find  out  what  kind  of  litera- 
ture I  read.  Once,  I  remember,  at  confession 
I  was  asked  a  very  intimate  question,  and 
when  I  protested  against  what  I  considered 
prurient  curiosity,  I  was  informed  that  this  par- 
ticular question  had  been  put  to  me  at  my 
father-in-law's  instigation. 

Poor    bigoted,    intolerant    man!     He    lived 


MY  OWN  STORY  125 

out  of  his  time,  which  ought  to  have  been  in 
the  palmy  days  of  the  Inquisition,  and  I  think 
that  his  greatest  pleasure  in  life  would  have 
consisted  in  having  a  daily  auto-da-fe  until  he 
had  burned  all  the  Protestants  in  Saxony. 

My  sister-in-law,  Princess  Mathilde,  is  a 
"great"  amateur  artist,  and  she  also  poses  as 
a  patron  of  the  belles-lettres.  She  goes  in  for 
figure  subjects  and  covers  huge  canvases.  If 
Mathilde  were  ever  to  paint  tiny  genre  pic- 
tures, there  would  be  weeping  and  lamentation 
among  the  firms  who  supply  her  with  materials, 
for  her  work  demands  a  great  deal  of  paint,  and 
she  is  a  most  profitable  customer. 

Princess  Mathilde  is  built  on  very  generous 
lines,  and  perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why  she 
does  everything  on  a  large  scale.  I  have  heard 
that  as  a  girl  of  sixteen  she  was  pretty  enough  to 
be  mentioned  as  a  possible  wife  for  the  Crown 
Prince  Rudolph  of  Austria,  but  when  he  visited 
Dresden  in  order  to  inspect  her,  he  realised 
that  her  heaute  de  jeunesse  would  presently  out- 
rival the  most  exuberant  Rubens  type,  and  at 
once  decided  to  look  out  for  a  more  elegant  bride. 
My  sister-in-law  is  a  very  extraordinary  woman. 
We  were  never  in  sympathy,  and  she  made  no 
pretence  of  even  tolerating  me;  she  does  not 


126  MY  OWN  STORY 

possess  a  particle  of  femininity,  but  likes  to  be 
thought  an  esprit  fort  far  above  every  one  else 
in  intellectual  attainments.  She  does  not  care 
for  dress,  although  she  fondly  imagines  her 
toilettes  are  "le  dernier  cri  du  chic,"  and  I 
remember  that  for  years  her  favourite  theatre- 
gown  was  a  framboise-coloured  silk  brocaded 
with  tiny  green  flowers;  her  hair  was  dressed 
in  a  style  entirely  her  own,  always  at  variance 
with  her  tiara,  and  her  complexion  exactly 
matched  the  framboise  gown.  She  timed  her- 
self for  dressing:  twelve  and  three  quarter 
minutes  were  allowed  for  a  Court  ball,  five  and 
three  quarter  minutes  for  dinner,  and  her  maids 
were  not  allowed  to  spend  one  moment  more 
over  her  toilette. 

When  I  lived  in  Dresden,  Mathilde  chose 
her  gowns  in  a  most  odd  way.  Patterns  were 
submitted  to  her,  which  she  held  up  to  the 
light  in  turn,  and  the  most  transparent  were 
invariably  selected.  Her  hats  usually  covered 
both  her  head  and  her  ears,  and  her  riding- 
habit  became  a  Joseph's  coat  of  many  colours 
through  exposure  to  the  elements.  Mathilde 
loved  riding,  but  her  moimts  had  to  be  chosen 
with  care  in  order  that  the  horse  might  not 
collapse  under  her  weight.     She  is  a  most  pious 


■iPH^iisi^gsiilipesi 


nigptipHi 


MY  OWN  STORY  129 

princess  and  alv/ays  takes  part  in  the  various 
church  festivals.  I  well  remember  her  at  the 
Corpus  Domini  processions  when  she  walked 
up  the  aisle  wearing  the  decollete  gown  de- 
manded by  etiquette,  with  a  page  holding 
her  train;  her  gown  was  very  short  in  front 
to  make  walking  easy,  and  her  huge  hands, 
encased  in  large  gloves,  clasped  an  enormous 
wax  candle  which  dropped  grease  everywhere. 

One  of  her  hobbies  is  bee-keeping,  and  she 
once  received  some  very  distinguished  visitors, 
wearing  a  short  skirt,  a  muffler  over  her  head, 
and  thick  woollen  gloves.  She  had  been  deep 
in  the  cult  of  bees  when  our  friends  arrived, 
and  at  once  treated  them  to  a  lengthy  discourse 
on  bees  and  ants.  Mathilde  said  that  life  held 
no  greater  pleasure  for  her  than  when  she  was 
examining  an  ant  through  a  magnifying-glass, 
and  every  one  tittered  at  the  picture  thus 
conjured  up  of  the  huge  princess  and  the  tiny 
ant. 

Mathilde  danced  a  great  deal  when  I  first 
came  to  Dresden,  but  as  she  was  not  sure- 
footed, she  often  slipped  on  the  parquet  floor, 
and  even  occasionally  fell  down  with  a  thud 
that  could  be  felt  all  over  the  room.  She  also 
skated,  but   she  slipped   and   slid   so  ungrace- 


130  MY  OWN  STORY 

fully  that  the  King  put  a  stop  to  her  per- 
formances in  public,  and  had  part  of  the 
private  gardens  flooded  for  her  especial  use  in 
winter;  there  she  went  in  for  Alpine  sports, 
and  the  sight  of  Mathilde  on  "skis"  was 
unforge  table. 

She  professes  to  regard  men  with  complete 
indifference,  and  used  to  remark,  "It  is  nothing 
to  me  whether  a  man  is  old  or  yoimg,  ugly  or 
handsome." 

Two  years  ago,  she  visited  Varallo,  near 
Novara,  where  I  was  staying.  We  did  not 
meet  as  I  was  away  in  Florence  for  a  few 
days,  but  I  was  told  that  the  first  glimpse 
people  had  of  her  was  a  large  woman  sitting 
on  a  very  small  donkey,  accompanied  by  a  lady- 
and  gentleman-in-waiting.  Everybody  at  first 
thought  she  was  an  American,  and  directly 
she  arrived  at  the  hotel  she  instructed  her 
gentleman-in-waiting  to  go  to  the  manager, 
and  endeavotir  to  find  out  all  about  me,  for 
she  had  previously  been  told  that  I  was  staying 
there.  The  manager  explained  to  her  emissary 
that  I  was  away,  and  this  seemed  to  make  him 
furious.  He  went  upstairs  and  examined  some 
of  my  trunks  which  were  placed  in  the  corridor, 
and  even  tried  to  bribe  the  chambermaid  to  let 


MY  OWN  STORY  131 

him  inside  my  rooms.  I  cannot  give  any 
reason  for  this  disgraceful  behaviour  except 
that  Mathilde  ordered  him  to  do  so;  if  she  did 
so,  it  was  quite  worthy  of  her. 

The  next  morning  the  slumbering  guests  were 
aroused  at  an  unearthly  hour  by  the  shouts  of 
Mathilde  demanding  her  bath  water.  A  whole 
regiment  of  hot-  and  cold-water  jugs  were 
brought,  also  the  largest  hip-bath  of  which  the 
hotel  boasted;  but  after  Mathilde  the  deluge, 
and  it  took  nearly  half  a  day  to  dry  the 
floor. 

At  7  A.M.,  Mathilde  left  to  make  a  pilgrimage 
to  the  shrine  of  Our  Lady  of  Varallo,  and  when 
she  returned  to  the  hotel  she  had  a  heated 
discussion  about  some  change  which  had  not 
been  given  to  her. 

"I  won't  go  from  here  without  my  forty 
centimes,"  she  cried  angrily;  but  she  gradually 
calmed  down  and  went  on  her  way,  leaving 
three  francs  to  be  divided  among  the  servants. 

Prince  John-George,  my  husband's  second 
brother,  is  a  very  studious  person.  He  reads 
from  morning  till  night,  and  his  literature 
consists  chiefly  of  the  lives  of  dead-and-gone 
Popes.  Pie  always  asks  whether  one  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  life  of  such  and  such  a  Pope, 


132  MY  OWN  STORY 

and  he  is  quite  disappointed  when  any  one 
displays  ignorance  of  the  subject. 

He  is  built  on  the  same  lines  as  Mathilde, 
and  is  somewhat  heavy  on  his  feet,  as  his  part- 
ners find  out  to  their  cost  whenever  they  are 
honoured  by  a  command  to  dance  with  him. 
John- George,  as  becomes  a  papal  student,  is 
deeply  religious,  and  he  is  also  imbued  with  a 
tremendous  idea  of  his  own  importance.  He  is 
selfish  and  unsympathetic,  but  I  found  him 
easier  to  get  on  with  than  Mathilde. 

His  first  wife  was  Isabella  of  Wiirttemberg, 
and  his  second  Maria  Immaculee,  a  daugh- 
ter of  my  second  cousin  the  Comte  de  Ca- 
serta.  Her  sister  married  my  brother,  the 
Archduke  Peter,  and  they  are  both  sweet, 
delightful  women,  peacemakers  in  every  sense 
of  the  word. 

Prince  Max  of  Saxony,  my  brother-in-law, 
possesses  much  of  his  father's  fanaticism,  but  he 
is,  notwithstanding,  a  really  good  and  pious 
man,  who  devotes  all  his  time  and  money  to 
reHgion. 

I  remember  he  was  once  taken  ill  at  Freiburg, 
and  was  obliged  to  return  to  Dresden  from  sheer 
starvation,  because  he  had  given  all  his  worldly 
substance  to  the  poor.     Mathilde  was  deputed 


MY  OWN  STORY  133 

to  meet  him,  and  as  his  father  imagined  that  he 
might  be  somewhat  unpresentable,  he  was  asked 
to  leave  the  train  a  few  stations  away  from 
Dresden.  Max  was  in  a  terrible  plight  when  he 
appeared  in  the  family  circle.  His  hair  and  nails 
had  grown  beyond  any  possible  conception;  his 
soutane  shone  with  grease  and  hard  wear;  his 
toes  protruded  through  his  shoes.  In  fact,  he 
looked  most  unlike  a  prince  or  a  priest.  I  was 
quite  horrified,  and  I  asked  him  whether  he  had 
brought  any  luggage. 

"No,"  he  replied;  "I  Ve  only  a  toothbrush, 
and  after  I  brush  my  teeth  with  it  I  use  it  for 
my  hair!" 

Such  was  the  royal  family  into  which  I  had 
married.  We  were  mutually  antagonistic  from 
the  beginning.  I  was  like  the  cuckoo  in  the 
sparrow's  nest,  or  the  one  artistic  or  original 
member  of  a  worthy  middle-class  family  in  the 
midst  of  his  relations.  I  forgot  that  "originality 
and  imagination  are  the  unforgivable  sins,"  and 
looking  at  it  from  this  point  of  view,  I  can  see 
that  I  must  have  proved  a  most  disturbing 
element,  for  I  had  not  fulfilled  their  expectations 
of  being  a  princess  who  was  merely  content  to 
be  a  princess  and  not  a  woman.  Every  proof 
of  my  independent   spirit  was  regarded  with 


134  MY  OWN  STORY 

mistrust  and  anger,  and  I  think  they  one  and 
all,  Frederick- August  excepted,  agreed  with 
my  father-in-law  when  he  said  in  those  early 
days: 

"C'est  malheureux  que  tu  sois  venue  dans 
notre  famille,  parceque  tu  ne  seras  jamais  une 
des  n6tres." 


CHAPTER  VIII 


My  first  visit  to  Berlin — The  Emperor  William — What  I 
think  of  him — The  green  chiffon  dress — Customs  and 
ceremonies — The  ghostly  carriage  at  the  Royal  Castle 
— The  treasure-house — Some  stories  about  August  the 
Strong — His  ugly  daughter-in-law — A  defiant  Elect- 
res  s — Carried  away  in  earnest — The  fate  of  a  practi- 
cal joker — The  frightened  blacksmith — The  strong 
man  indeed. 


135 


CHAPTER  VIII 


T  FOUND  Dresden  rather  unpleasant  during  my 
*  first  winter,  for  I  rarely  saw  the  sun,  and  I  was 
not  sorry  when  in  the  month  of  January  we  went 
to  Berlin  on  a  visit  to  the  Emperor  William.  It 
is  etiquette  to  be  presented  to  the  Emperor, 
wearing  a  silk  dress,  so  I  travelled  to  Berlin  in 
another  of  mamma's  "State  gowns,"  with  a 
hateful  toque  to  correspond.  Before  I  left 
Dresden  I  was  pestered  with  exhortations  as 
to  my  behaviour  when  I  met  the  Emperor,  and 
I  was  especially  asked  on  no  account  to  alight 
too  quickly  from  the  train.  If  the  Emperor 
approved  of  me  he  would  kiss  me,  but  I  must 
not  attempt  to  return  the  kiss. 

I  thought  all  this  fuss  ridiculous.  I  did 
not  feel  that  veneration  for  Emperors  which 
seemed  to  possess  my  husband's  family,  for  in 
mine  we  had  always  had  an  Emperor  as  oiir 
relation.  I  was,  however,  curious  to  see  the 
Emperor  William,  because  I  knew  he  was  a  man 


138  MY  OWN  STORY 

of  strong  likes  and  dislikes,  and  strength  of 
character  always  appeals  to  me. 

When  we  arrived  at  Berlin,  I  saw  that  the 
platform  was  a  mass  of  colour  with  all  the 
uniforms,  and  I  wondered  which  wearer  would 
prove  to  be  the  Emperor,  for  it  looked  an 
"embarras  de  choix."  Two  footmen  rushed  up 
to  our  carriage  carrying  some  carpet-covered 
steps,  and  at  last,  as  I  looked  about,  I  recognised 
the  Kaiser.  Etiquette  went  to  the  winds.  I 
disregarded  the  steps  and  jumped  down  to  the 
platform,  and  directly  the  Emperor  saw  me,  he 
embraced  me  and  kissed  me  on  both  cheeks,  and 
afterguards  kissed  my  hand.  I  was  so  pleased 
that  I  forgot  all  I  had  been  told  not  to  do, 
and  promptly  returned  the  kiss.  The  Generals 
were  presented  to  me,  and  we  then  drove 
to  the  palace,  where  I  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  Empress  and  her  children,  and  the 
Kaiser  said  he  would  escort  me  to  my  rooms. 
We  walked  so  quickly  that  Frederick-August 
was  almost  left  behind,  and  when  we  reached 
the  suite  apportioned  to  me,  the  Emperor  re- 
marked as  he  showed  me  the  communicating 
bathroom :  "  I  know  you  will  appreciate  a  good 
bathroom." 

'  *  Oh,  yes, ' '  I  assented.    ' '  A  bath  means  a  great 


MY  OWN  STORY  139 

deal  to  me,"  and  then  I  added  impulsively: 
"You  have  made  a  great  impression  on  me, 
and  I  think  both  you — and  the  bathroom — are 
perfectly  charming." 

The  Emperor  smiled  kindly  and  seemed  rather 
amused  at  my  naive  remark.  I  sat  next  him  that 
evening  at  the  State  banquet,  and  had  a  very 
good  time,  although  the  music  deafened  and  tired 
me.  I  talked  freely  to  my  host,  and  found  that 
he  did  not  object  to  my  frankness. 

"Now,  Lomsa,"  he  said  quietly,  "you 
and  I  will  be  good  friends,  and  later  on  I 
want  you  to  become  my  political  friend  as 
well." 

I  found  the  Emperor  William  a  most  remark- 
able man.  He  can  be  very  genial,  but  he 
possesses  an  iron  and  inflexible  will.  He  is  vain, 
and  always  wishes  to  be  the  first  actor  in  what- 
ever drama  he  plays,  and  although  he  is  an 
undoubted  authority  on  military  matters,  he 
understands  little  or  nothing  about  art  or  music, 
and  his  wonderful  gifts  are  marred  by  his  intense 
egotism.  He  can  be  equally  charming  or  the 
reverse,  and  the  reverse  is  not  at  all  pleasant. 
His  personal  appearance  is  unique;  he  is  well 
groomed,  his  expression  is  sympathetic  and  in- 
telligent, and  his  marvellous  eyes  are  truly  the 


140  MY  OWN  STORY 

windows  of  the  soul  of  this  restless,  brilliant, 
and  strange  man. 

Before  leaving  next  day,  I  took  tea  with  the 
Empress,  and  again  saw  all  the  children.  The 
Kaiserin  gave  me  the  predominant  idea  of  being 
an  excellent  mother ;  she  was  very  good-looking, 
but  rather  too  tightly  laced  to  be  graceful,  and  I 
thought  her  a  trifle  dull.  She  talked  solely  on 
two  topics:  one  was  the  comfort  she  found  in 
religion,  and  the  other  concerned  the  care  of 
babies,  and  she  told  me  that  she  insisted  upon 
nursing  all  her  children  herself. 

The  first  State  ball  given  after  my  marriage 
was  a  brilliant  affair,  and  my  dress  created  quite  a 
sensation.  ]\Iamma's  forethought  had  provided 
m.e  with  a  gorgeous  gown,  literally  plastered  with 
jewelled  embroidery,  not  at  all  suitable  for  a  girl 
of  my  age.  I  regarded  it  with  ever-increasing 
dislike;  and  although  I  tried  to  take  off  some  of 
the  trimming,  the  scissors  made  little  impression 
on  the  bullion  fringe,  and  I  said  to  myself  as  I 
ruefully  regarded  my  sore  fingers:  "This  gown 
was  certainly  made  for  a  princess,  it  's  as  hard 
and  glittering  as  a  palace;"  then,  "I  won't  wear 
it,  I  '11  look  natural."  I  sent  for  my  maid  and 
told  her  my  decision,  but  we  were  faced  with  the 
question  of  what  to  substitute  for  the  rejected 


MY  OWN  STORY  141 

dress.  I  considered  what  material  would  best 
lend  itself  to  my  dream  of  sweet  simplicity,  and 
decided  that  chiffon  was  the  only  one  for  this 
occasion.  My  maid  told  me  that  she  knew  a 
little  dressmaker  who  would  run  up  the  gown 
quickly.  I  accordingly  sent  for  her,  and  we 
evolved  a  most  artistic  garment  of  sea-green 
chiffon,  which  was  simplicity  itself.  The  decol- 
letage  was  round  and  the  sleeves  practically 
invisible!  I  wore  pink  carnations  in  my  hair, 
a  few  diamonds  glittered  like  dewdrops  in  the 
soft  chiffon  bodice,  a  twist  of  silk  encircled  my 
waist,  and  the  delicate  fabric  flowed  round  me 
in  soft  billowy  folds.  I  was  so  young  and 
girlish  looking  that  the  dress  suited  me  as 
nothing  else  could  have  done,  and  I  felt  the 
incarnation  of  youth  and  happiness. 

Before  the  ball,  I  came  into  the  salon  where  my 
father-in-law  was  sitting,  and  he  was  exceedingly 
displeased  with  me.  He  reproached  me  very 
bitterly  on  my  gown,  which  he  said  was  quite 
unsuitable  for  a  princess,  but  I  comforted  myself 
with  the  thought  that  as  he  had  not  a  particle 
of  taste  himself,  anything  artistic  or  unusual  was 
quite  wasted  on  him,  and  therefore  his  opinion 
did  not  count  for  much. 

My  gown  really  did  make  a  sensation,  and 


142  MY  OWN  STORY 

the  day  after  the  ball,  all  the  green  chiffon  in 
Dresden  was  sold  out;  my  dress  was  copied 
fifty  times  over,  and  my  maid  was  bribed  on 
all  sides  to  disclose  the  name  of  the  dress- 
maker. 

There  are  many  curious  ceremonies  at  the 
Court  of  Saxony  which  I  do  not  think  exist 
elsewhere.  On  January  ist,  the  "Hof spiel" 
takes  place,  after  the  presentations  and  recep- 
tions are  over,  when  the  Royal  Family  sit  at 
small  tables  and  play  whist.  The  entire  Court 
then  comes  through  the  room  from  door  to 
door,  and  everybody  curtseys  deeply  as  they 
pass  the  card- tables.  Naturally  the  curtseys 
are  acknowledged,  and  we  used  to  look  like  a 
lot  of  nodding  mandarins  as  we  sat  pla5dng 
cards  and  inclining  our  heads  at  the  same  time. 

When  a  royal  wedding  takes  place,  an  old 
tradition  ordains  a  State  dinner,  at  which  only 
members  of  the  family  are  present.  The  Royal 
Family  sit  in  a  row  at  a  crescent-shaped  table, 
and  are  waited  on  by  the  great  officials  and 
pages.  The  Court  watches  the  meal  from 
behind,  and  when  the  King  drinks  the  health 
of  the  happy  couple,  four  trumpeters  dressed  in 
mediaeval  costume  blow  a  fanfare  on  silver 
trumpets. 


MY  OWN  STORY  143 

I  was  present  at  this  dinner  when  John- 
George  was  first  married,  and  I  remember  a 
ludicrous  contretemps  occurred.  One  of  the 
chefs  was  bringing  in  an  enormous  piece  of 
beef,  when  he  tripped  and  fell  head  first  into 
one  of  the  large  silver-gilt  flower  tubs ;  the  pieces 
of  beef  (which  was  already  sliced  to  prevent  loss 
of  time  in  carving)  were  scattered  in  all  direc- 
tions, and  the  denuded  bone  rolled  away  over 
the  carpet.  This  occurrence  so  disturbed  the 
composure  of  the  page  who  was  standing  behind 
me  that  he  upset  the  gravy  tureen  he  was 
holding  all  over  my  shoulders,  and  as  I  was 
greasy  from  neck  to  waist,  I  think  I  have 
undoubtedly  cause  to  remember  John-George's 
wedding  banquet. 

The  Court  pages  were  always  in  evidence, 
and  when  we  attended  the  concerts,  they 
always  stood  behind  omt  chairs,  and  those 
unfortunate  boys  who  were  not  very  strong 
sometimes  used  to  faint  from  over-fatigue. 

Another  custom  is  known  as  the  "Vogel- 
schiessen"  and  its  origin  goes  back  to  mediaeval 
days.  Every  year  a  fair  is  held  near  Dresden, 
and  the  Royal  Family  invariably  attend  it. 
The  fair  is  like  most  others,  a  collection  of 
freak  shows  and  booths  of  all  kinds  with  the 


144  MY  OWN  STORY 

pervading  odours  of  humanity,  sausages,  cheese, 
and  beer.  The  great  event  of  the  day  is 
shooting  at  the  "  Vogel-schiessen,"  which  is  a 
large  wooden  bird  made  up  of  a  number  of 
pieces,  which  fall  out  if  they  are  hit  in  the  right 
place,  and  the  display  of  marksmanship  is 
watched  with  breathless  interest.  The  Royal 
Family  all  shoot,  and  an  attendant  informs 
the  waiting  crowd  which  Prince  or  Princess  is 
about  to  try  his  or  her  skill.  Thanks  to  my 
father's  tuition,  I  am  quite  a  fair  shot,  and  I 
usually  managed  to  hit  the  Vogel-schiessen  in  a 
"vital"  part. 

At  Christmas,  long,  heavy  currant  loaves, 
very  rich  and  indigestible,  are  baked,  and  families 
visit  one  another  to  eat  the  loaves,  which  are 
to  be  found  in  every  home.  I  remember  on 
one  occasion  when  John-George  and  Mathilde 
paid  me  a  Christmas  visit,  they  devoured  about 
fourteen  slices  of  currant  loaf  apiece,  and  then 
had  quite  a  dispute  as  to  who  had  eaten  the 
most! 

Like  many  royal  residences,  the  Royal  Castle 
is  supposed  to  be  the  scene  of  occasional  super- 
natural happenings,  and  I  can  certainly  vouch 
for  the  truth  of  something  very  uncanny  which 
came  within  my  personal  experience. 


MY  OWN  STORY  145 

After  the  fire  (February  24,  1894)  which 
nearly  destroyed  the  whole  interior  of  our 
apartments  in  the  palace,  we  removed  to 
another  suite  of  rooms  which  had  been  unin- 
habited for  thirty  years.  One  evening  during 
dinner,  when  we  were  all  laughing  and  talking, 
our  attention  was  arrested  by  the  tramping  of 
horses'  hoofs,  and  the  rumbling  of  a  heavy 
carriage  in  the  courtyard,  seemingly  as  if  it 
were  just  turning  out  of  the  great  entrance. 
We  naturally  wondered  who  was  leaving  the 
palace,  and  I  sent  a  footman  to  inquire,  but 
he  returned  and  told  me  that  no  carriage  had 
driven  out  at  the  time  we  heard  the  noise.  I 
was  very  much  puzzled,  and  shortly  afterwards 
when  the  same  thing  occurred  I  investigated 
it  myself,  but  to  no  purpose.  I  mentioned  the 
matter  to  my  father-in-law,  who  told  me  that 
his  old  aunts,  who  formerly  resided  in  this  part 
of  the  palace,  had  occasionally  heard  the 
mysterious  horses  and  carriage,  and  it  was 
supposed  to  presage  trouble  and  disaster  to 
the  Royal  Family. 

A  special  lunch  is  given  by  the  King  to  the 
Royal  Family  on  Easter  Day,  when  the  conse- 
crated egg  is  eaten  with  much  formality.  The 
King  takes  a  hard-boiled  egg,  and  cuts  it  into 


146  MY  OWN  STORY 

as  many  pieces  as  there  are  members  of  the 
family  present,  and  they  then  eat  their  respect- 
ive shces.  After  the  '  *  egg ' '  course,  chicken  broth 
and  cold  meats  follow,  and  the  menu  is  always 
the  same  year  after  year. 

In  the  Royal  Castle  there  is  a  famous  treasure- 
house,  called  the  Grunegevolbe,  where,  in 
vaulted  rooms  below  the  level  of  the  street,  are 
kept  the  wonderful  art  treasures  and  jewels 
belonging  to  the  Kings  of  Saxony.  There 
are  beautiful  examples  of  Benvenuto  Cellini's 
work,  rare  ivories  inlaid  with  precious  stones, 
and  exquisite  Limoges  enamels.  The  parures 
of  August  the  Strong,  Saxony's  famous  Elector, 
together  with  his  buckles,  buttons,  and  sword- 
hilts,  make  up  a  glittering  mass  of  diamonds, 
emeralds,  rubies,  and  sapphires,  and  the  crown 
jewels  baffle  all  description. 

The  Grunegevolbe  did  not  monopolise  all  the 
treasures,  for  one  rainy  day  we  explored  the 
lumber  rooms  at  the  top  of  the  palace  and  found 
quantities  of  beautiful  furniture,  rolls  of  Cordova 
leather,  and  rare  tapestries,  all  so  thickly  covered 
with  the  dust  of  ages  that  it  was  at  first  quite 
impossible  to  estimate  their  beauty  or  value. 
After  our  discovery,  I  am  glad  to  say,  these 
treasures  were  all  reinstated,   and  distributed 


MY  OWN  STORY  147 

with   great   artistic   effect  in  the  State  apart- 
ments. 

I  always  wish  that  I  had  lived  in  the  days 
of  August  the  Strong,  as  I  feel  sure  I  should 
have  preferred  him  as  a  father-in-law,  for  he,  too, 
had  an  Austrian  Archduchess  as  a  daughter-in- 
law.  His  son  and  heir  became  a  convert  to 
Catholicism,  and  was  received  in  the  church  of 
Milan,  then  an  Austrian  province.  The  Governor 
of  Milan,  who  was  an  Austrian  Archduke,  had 
a  very  fascinating  daughter,  Maria- Josepha, 
whom  Prince  Frederick- August  fell  in  love  with, 
and  promptly  married .  The  young  Archduchess , 
who  was  the  aunt  of  the  Empress  Maria-Theresa, 
was  excessively  plain,  and  almost  dwarfish,  but 
she  was  very  clever  and,  as  I  have  previously 
stated,  very  fascinating. 

The  newly  married  couple  made  a  State  entry 
into  Dresden,  and  the  bride  was  attended  by  two 
excessively  pretty  ladies-in-waiting,  who  alighted 
first,  when  the  carriage  stopped.  August  the 
Strong,  who  was  standing  in  readiness  to  receive 
his  new  daughter-in-law,  concluded  that  the 
lovely  girl  who  stepped  out  first  was  the  Arch- 
duchess, and  at  once  took  her  in  his  arms  and 
embraced  her  with  paternal  fervour.  He  was 
perfectly  dismayed  when  he  found  out  his  mis- 


148  MY  OWN  STORY 

take  and  turning  to  his  son,  he  said,  with  cold 
contempt:  "^^slonsieur,  j'aurais  cm  que  vous 
auriez  eu  meilleur  gout." 

The  Elector  was  a  gallant  man,  so,  to  console 
the  lad3^-in-waiting  for  not  having  the  pleasure 
of  being  his  daughter-in-law,  he  shortly  afte.-- 
wards  made  her  his  mistress. 

There  is  a  story  about  the  Archduchess 
Maria- Josepha,  after  she  became  Electress  of 
Saxony.  During  the  war  with  Prussia,  Fred- 
erick the  Great  entered  Dresden,  and  insisted 
upon  opening  the  muniment  room  at  the 
Castle.  The  Electress  refused  to  allow  this; 
she  barricaded  the  door  with  her  own  person, 
and  stubbornly  defied  both  the  King  and  his 
famous  Grenadiers. 

"Majestat,"  said  she,  "you  can  enter  this 
room  only  when  you  carry  me  away." 

Frederick  was  not  exactly  a  chivalrous  person, 
and  he  forthwith  ordered  his  soldiers  to  remove 
the  Electress.  The  Grenadiers  at  once  picked 
her  up,  but  the  tiny  dwarfish  creature  kicked  and 
scratched  with  so  much  telling  effect  that  the 
process  of  carrying  her  away  from  the  muniment 
room  was  no  easy  task. 

August  the  Strong  used  sometimes  to  visit  the 
Emperor  at  Vienna,  and  on  one  occasion  he  was 


MY  OWN  STORY  149 

given  a  bedroom  which  he  was  told  had  the 
reputation  of  being  haunted.  After  a  heavy 
dinner,  the  Elector  retired  to  bed,  and  he  was 
just  dozing  off  when  he  heard  the  clanking  of 
chains  and  saw  a  tall  white  figure  moving  about 
the  room.  As  he  was  very  strong-minded  and 
also  very  tired  he  turned  over,  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  the  ghost,  and  was  soon  fast  asleep.  The 
next  morning  the  Emperor  asked  him  what  sort 
of  a  night  he  had  passed,  and  August  replied  that 
he  had  slept  excellently.  That  night  the  same 
thing  happened,  and  again  the  Emperor  made 
the  same  inquiries. 

"  Why  on  earth  do  you  trouble  yourself  so  about 
my  rest?"  inquired  the  Elector,  and  he  inwardly 
thought  that  there  must  be  some  reason  for  it. 

When  the  ghost  next  made  its  appearance, 
August  did  not  turn  over  and  go  to  sleep,  but 
jumping  out  of  bed  he  seized  the  expostulating 
spectre  and  flung  it  out  of  the  window.  Next 
morning  the  Emperor  was  informed  that  his 
guest  had  slept  better  than  ever. 

"I  saw  the  ghost,"  remarked  August,  and  he 
added  laconically,  "I  '11  show  him  to  you."  He 
opened  the  window,  and  showed  his  horrified 
host  a  huddled  heap  lying  in  the  courtyard 
below,  and  a  pair  of  broken  legs  served  to  re- 


150  MY  OWN  STORY 

mind  the  practical  joker  that  it  was  very  unwise  to 
play  the  ghost  for  the  benefit  of  August  the  Strong. 

When  the  Elector  returned  from  Vienna,  he 
stopped  at  a  wayside  forge  to  have  one  of  the 
horses  shod.  The  blacksmith  did  not  do  his 
work  well,  so  August,  who  was  a  man  of  tre- 
mendous physical  strength,  took  the  horseshoe 
in  his  hands,  and  without  any  effort  broke  it  in 
two.  The  smith  was  so  frightened  that  he 
thought  the  traveller  was  his  Satanic  majesty 
himself,  and  he  bolted,  leaving  the  forge  to  its 
fate,  and  only  returned  when  he  imagined  his 
strange  visitor  was  far  on  his  way. 

August  the  Strong  gave  interesting  dinners 
to  his  friends  in  the  famous  banqueting  hall 
at  the  Castle  of  2\Ioritzburg.  During  the  meal 
he  was  wont  to  summon  two  of  his  State  trum- 
peters who  stationed  themselves  on  the  terrace. 
The  Elector  would  then  pick  up  a  trumpeter  in 
each  hand  and  hold  them  out  at  arms'  length 
for  five  minutes  while  they  played  the  fanfare, 
and  when  they  had  finished  he  dropped  them 
on  the  grass  plot  beneath  the  terrace.  Having 
thus  given  his  guests  a  demonstration  of  his 
strength,  the  meal  continued,  and  the  trumpeters 
washed  away  the  memory  of  their  bruises  in 
bimipers  of  good  red  wine. 


CHAPTER    IX 


Motherhood — Birih  of  the  Crown  Prince — A  quarrel 
with  my  father-in-law — Popular  enthusiasm — "  Our 
Louisa  " — Domesticity — Country  life — Mathilda  and 
the  strawberries — An  "  enfant  terrible*^ — Thecrtche — 
The  Socialist's  baby. 


151 


CHAPTER  IX 


nPHE  happiest  day  of  my  life  was  when  I 
knew  I  had  hopes  of  becoming  a  mother. 
I  felt  carried  away  with  joy  and  thankfiilness 
as  I  realised  that  I,  who  adored  children,  would 
before  many  months  have  a  little  baby  of  my 
own  to  love  and  care  for.  I  planned  the  layette 
myself,  making  up  my  mind  that  my  child 
should  wear  simple,  practical  garments,  not 
"flimsies"  of  lace  and  ribbon,  and  my  ideas 
were  admirably  carried  out  by  the  firm  to 
whom  I  gave  the  order.  The  cradle,  I  decided, 
must  be  a  copy  of  our  own  gilt  bronzed  one  at 
Salzburg,  and  mamma  gave  me  the  sweetest 
basket,  in  which  my  last  little  sister  had  lain. 
As  the  time  for  my  accouchement  drew  near, 
I  often  speculated  in  my  romantic  way  about 
the  future  destiny  of  my  child.  I  had  experi- 
enced so  much  coldness  from  my  husband's 
family  that  I  was  longing  for  something  to 
love,  something  that  would  be  my  own.  "I 
sha  n't  be  a  princess  to  my  baby,"  I  mused;  "I 

153 


154  MY  OWN  STORY 

shall  just  be  its  mother,  whom  it  can  love  to 
its  heart's  content,  and  there  won't  be  a  single 
question  of  etiquette  to  trouble  ourselves  about 
when  we  are  together." 

My  husband  shared  my  joy,  and  he  was 
kindness  itself  to  me.  He  was  so  good  and 
affectionate  that  I  had  nothing  to  complain  of. 
And  oh,  how  I  wish  that  in  those  early  days 
when  I  felt  sore  and  rebuffed  I  had  told  him 
how  miserable  I  was!  Perhaps  he  would  have 
understood  me,  but  pride  made  me  keep  my 
troubles  to  myself. 

My  eldest  son,  the  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony, 
was  bom  on  January  15,  1893,  after  forty -eight 
hours  of  dreadful  anxiety  and  suffering.  The 
Royal  Family  waited  in  the  next  room,  and 
Queen  Carola  repeatedly  came  in  to  see  me.  She 
had  never  had  a  child,  and  I  remember  how  she 
kept  on  saying,  "Poor  dear!  poor  dear!"  and 
when  she  was  not  looking  critically  at  me  through 
her  lorgnette  she  was  losing  her  handkerchief 
and  fidgeting  about  trying  to  find  it.  The 
doctors  gave  me  chloroform  at  the  end,  and  the 
first  thing  I  remember  after  I  opened  my  eyes 
was  hearing  a  tiny,  feeble  cry  in  the  next  room. 
Something  I  had  never  felt  before  thrilled  me  as 
I  realised  that  this  cry  proceeded  from  my  own 


Photo  by  Otto  Mayer,  Dresden. 

MY    HUSBAND    AND    MYSELF   WITH    OUR    ELDEST    CHILD    (IURY> 


155 


MY  OWN  STORY  157 

child ;  then  my  husband  came  into  the  bedroom 
carrying  a  Httle,  flannel-wrapped  bundle,  and 
bending  over  me  he  put  my  first-born  son  into 
my  arms. 

I  half -smothered  the  baby  with  kisses,  and 
when  I  felt  how  entirely  this  helpless  little 
creature  depended  on  me,  my  whole  heart  and 
soul  went  out  to  it.  Of  course,  I  wished  to  nurse 
my  child.  I  was  young  and  healthy,  so  it 
seemed  to  me  only  right;  but  my  father-in-law, 
with  his  usual  assumption  of  authority,  forbade 
it,  saying:  "Princesses  don't  do  that  sort  of 
thing." 

When  he  found  that  I  meant  to  have  my  own 
way,  he  did  not  oppose  me  for  the  time  being, 
and  so  for  a  few  days  my  baby  and  I  were  left  in 
peace.  On  the  fourth  day,  however,  the  doctors 
told  me  that  I  must  not  continue  to  nurse  my 
child,  who  was  given  over  to  a  wet  nurse  selected 
by  them,  and,  needless  to  say,  approved  of  by 
my  father-in-law.  Oh,  how  I  cried  my  heart 
out !  I  tossed  from  side  to  side,  and  every  hour 
that  passed  without  my  baby  made  me  long  for 
him  more  than  ever.  The  doctors  were  afraid 
lest  I  should  fret  myself  into  a  fever,  but  they 
were  obdurate,  and  I  was  inconsolable.  I  had 
so  dreamed  of  being  a  mother  in  every  sense  of 


158  MY  OWN  STORY 

the  word  that  this  was  a  bitter  disappointment, 
and  I  angrily  told  my  father-in-law  that  he 
ought  not  to  deny  me  the  right  of  performing 
my  maternal  duties. 

The  Saxon  people  were  overjoyed  when  the  sa- 
lute of  one  hundred  and  one  guns  announced  the 
birth  of  a  prince,  and  there  was  wild  enthusiasm 
in  Dresden.  The  dear  people  showered  presents 
on  me  and  the  all-important  baby,  and  I  was 
much  touched  by  the  gifts  of  dresses,  socks, 
shoes,  flowers,  and  letters  full  of  affectionate 
regard  which  I  received  from  all  classes. 

My  little  son  was  christened  in  the  chapel  of 
the  Taschenberg  Palace,  which  is  a  most  curious 
edifice,  containing  the  relics  of  ten  thousand 
saints. 

A  royal  christening  takes  place  twenty-four 
hours  after  the  child's  birth,  and  my  children  all 
wore  the  beautiful  lace  robe  and  cap  and  were 
carried  on  the  lace-covered  cushion  which  had 
been  originally  made  in  Saxony  for  my  half- 
sister,  Marie- Antoinette.  A  curious  ceremony 
occurs  six  weeks  after  a  princess  of  Saxony  has 
had  her  first  child.  She  sits,  w^earing  a  beautiful 
toilette,  in  one  of  the  State  apartments,  and  the 
baby,  screaming  or  sleeping  as  the  case  may  be, 
lies  in  its  cradle  beside  her.     An  endless  pro- 


MY  OWN  STORY  i6i 

cession  of  invites  then  defiles  before  her  and  the 
child,  and  she  is  obliged  to  make  a  deep  obeisance 
as  each  person  passes.  Eight  hundred  people 
came  to  my  reception,  and  I  was  physically 
weary  of  the  proceedings  long  before  they  were 
over. 

I  used  to  pass  all  the  time  I  could  spare  with 
my  baby,  and  I  envied  with  a  most  jealous  envy 
the  nurse  who  had  usurped  my  rightful  place. 
On  December  31st  of  the  same  year,  my  second 
boy,  my  beloved  "Tia,"  was  born.  Again  there 
was  tremendous  joy,  and  again  I  came  into  con- 
flict with  my  father-in-law  on  the  subject  of 
nursing.  As  before,  he  had  his  way,  and  it  is 
small  wonder  that  I  hated  him. 

My  third  son,  Ernest,  was  born  on  December 
9,  1896,  and  on  August  22,  1898,  I  had  a  little 
girl  who  died  at  her  birth,  and  I  was  perilously 
near  losing  m.}^  own  life.  On  January  24,  1900, 
Margaret  v/as  born,  and  on  September  27,  1901, 
I  gave  birth  to  another  daughter,  Ivlaria-Alix. 

I  found  all  the  happiness  I  wanted  with  my 
dear  babies,  and  I  was  so  proud  and  pleased 
when  they  were  admired  out  of  doors.  I  have 
nothing  but  love  and  gratitude  for  the  Saxon 
people;  they  welcomed  me  on  the  first  day  I 
arrived  in  Dresden,  and  I  think  I  have  kept  my 


i62  MY  OWN  STORY 

place  in  their  hearts  ever  since.  They,  as  human 
beings,  felt  with  me  in  my  joys  and  sorrows;  the 
barriers  of  palace  walls  never  existed  between  us, 
and  the  title  which  I  value  more  than  any  other 
is  that  of  "Our  Louisa,"  which  they  bestowed 
on  me. 

One  day  when  I  w^as  in  a  shop  a  large  crowd 
gathered  outside  and  waited  for  me.  Directly  I 
saw  the  people  I  allowed  them  to  come  close  and 
clasp  the  hands  of  the  present  Crown  Prince, 
who  was  then  a  fat,  rosy,  fair-haired  boy  of  a 
year  old.  It  somehow  was  always  natural  for 
me  to  be  natural  in  everything  I  did,  and  the 
people  imderstood  this  perfectly  and  never 
misconstrued  me  or  my  actions. 

When  my  father-in-law  saw  these  demonstra- 
tions of  affection,  he  said,  satirically:  "V^Tiat  a 
bid  you  make  for  popularit}^  Louisa,"  a  remark 
which  both  Vv^ounded  and  offended  me,  as  I  had 
never  thought  of  doing  such  a  thing. 

I  alwa3^s  interested  myself  in  my  servants, 
who  gave  me  their  whole-hearted  service ;  every 
morning  I  arranged  the  menu  for  the  day  with 
the  chef;  I  often  went  into  the  kitchens  to  see 
for  myself  how  certain  "plats"  were  prepared, 
and  as  I  was  always  over-anxious  that  everything 
shoiild  be  faultless  when  we  gave  a  Statedinner, 


MY    SECOND    son:    PRINCE    FREDERICK-CHRISTIAN    OF    SAXONY   (TIA) 


163 


MY  OWN  STORY  165 

I  sometimes  even  used  to  go  down  in  my  dinner- 
gown  directly  my  toilette  was  completed,  to 
assure  myself  that  all  was  going  on  well!  I 
inherited  this  love  of  housekeeping  from  my 
father,  whose  excellent  training  had  not  been 
wasted,  and  I  could  cook  quite  a  good  dinner 
unaided.  Once  a  year,  during  our  residence  in 
the  country,  I  regularly  prepared  and  cooked 
the  dinner,  and  I  remember  that  Frederick- 
August  was  especially  pleased  when  the  menu 
consisted  of  potato  soup,  boiled  beef,  roast 
chicken,  and  various  kinds  of  sweets. 

I  loved  those  days  in  the  country.  I  was  more 
untrammelled  there,  and  my  husband  and  I  led 
the  happiest  and  simplest  of  lives  together.  I 
cut  the  asparagus  and  picked  the  strawberries, 
and  this  fruit  brings  to  my  mind  an  anecdote  of 
Mathilde. 

One  evening  she  and  my  father-in-law  were 
dining  with  us  in  the  country,  and  that  year  the 
strawberries  were  exceptionally  fine  and  plenti- 
ful. When  they  were  handed  round,  Mathilde 
heaped  her  plate  up  so  high  that  the  berries 
fell  over  the  side,  to  the  ever-growing  interest  of 
two  little  pairs  of  eyes,  which  were  watching 
her  intently;  and  the  children  were  greatly 
struck    when    Mathilde    crowned    the  Monte 


i66  MY  OWy  STORY 

Rosa  cf  stravrbemes  with  a  Men:  Blanc  of 
sugar. 

I  had  always  impressed  on  the  children  that 
greediness  was  a  most  horrible  fail  :.r  a:.l  the 
sight  of  Mathilde's  plate  so  shccked  darling 
"Tia,"  that  he  forgot  his  usv.:i  :  :  t  n-.r.r.rers, 
and  exclaimed  in  distressed  tines:  Lcck 
Mamma^  Aunt  Mathilde  has  tahen  ail  the 
strawberries,  see  what  a  mess    he  1=  rr.ahir.gl" 

I  tried  to  silence  this  obserw  :  t  :        ^ ;, 

but  suddenly  my  falher-mAB.v  /  h:  v  as  rather 
de-af.  said.  "Eh?    What^    What's  Tia  sayins'" 

Of  course.  I  hi'  i  a:t  r-^aeat  "'hat  he  had 
actually  s :  i  an  a  it  was  all  I  :  .ad  do  to  prevent 
JMathilde  freai  '::  :aiaa  her  avahr~'s  ears. 

The  ch'l  Irea  were  c:a;t:,ath"  -:^ith  nte  in  the 
country;  Iwashel  sr.i  araa^ea  thera.  alayei  vrith 
tiieni,tau7ht  theat  their  satiale  htle  araversand 
if  they  were  ill  I  a--,-er  l-:t  th^ai  aav  or  nijht. 
They  weremy  priae  ana  ray  aearest  aissessiens, 
and  they  repaid  all  my  devotion  ry  ar  a  ing 
up  beautiful,  healthy  children,  vha  -ere  both 
natural  and  obedient.  I  al-ays  ahovrea  their 
Inhi  idjialities  to  develop  freely  t^  aa~e  I  v  as 
deterraiaea  that  they  shoal  a  have  a  chance  cf 
b'e::raa'a'  '  ■" 'al-minded.  ana.  in  future  days. 
cantains    ,:  taeir  souls. 


1^ 

r^ 

^H 

^^^^^^^p 

1 

t 

^H 

^^^^^l» 

J 

^1 

^^^^^K 

^^1 

^^^^^^^Es 

i 

H 

^^^He 

/ 
1 

^^^^k     '^^^^l 

^^^^^C'          ^^^1 

H 

j^^^^H 

1 

^^B 

1 

^H 

:2 

K^HH 

HUHHbI 

^j 

^^^^^^^^^H^fel^^B 

n^ 

aafef^-^^ 

^^■^.^.^Mf:^ 

Photo  by  James  Aurig. 

MY    YOUNGEST    SON:     PRINCE    ERNEST-HENRY    OF    SAXONY    (ERNI) 


167 


MY  OWN  STORY  169 

I  never  see  a  fruit-laden  cherry-tree  without 
thinking  of  those  bygone  summers  when  the 
children  and  I  used  to  go  into  the  orchard  to 
pick  the  cherries.  I  climbed  a  ladder  and  threw 
down  the  scarlet  fruit  to  the  dear  little  expectant 
hands.  Oh,  happy  days  spent  with  my  loved 
ones,  vanished  now  for  ever!  The  summer 
always  has  regrets  for  me ;  the  smell  of  the  hay, 
the  scent  of  roses,  the  long,  drowsy  days  and  the 
warm,  still  nights,  all  stab  me  with  the  mem- 
ories which  I  shall  carry  with  me  to  the  grave. 

Our  country  life  was  spent  almost  entirely 
out  of  doors;  we  played  tennis,  rode  and  drove, 
and  picnicked  in  the  hayfields;  and  I  always 
cut  the  flowers  for  the  table  and  arranged  them 
myself.  The  children  and  I  dusted  the  books 
and  bric-a-brac  together,  and  it  was  the  prettiest 
sight  imaginable  to  watch  the  tiny  boys  trying 
to  imitate  "Mamma."  I  think  that  my  son 
Christian  ("Tia")  possesses  many  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  our  family.  He  was  a  pretty 
child ;  now  he  is  a  very  handsome  youth,  and  he 
was,  and  is  now,  warm-hearted  and  affectionate. 
I  am  told  that  he  greatly  resembles  my  father 
in  the  days  of  his  youth,  and  I  am  glad  of  it. 
George,  who  is  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony,  and 
his  brother  "Erni,"  were  also  dear  boys,  and 


170  MY  OWN  STORY 

I  believe  they  are  most  promising  and  nice- 
minded.  The  little  girls  were  sweet  children, 
but  I  hear  that  Margaret  is  very  much  "prin- 
cess" in  all  that  she  says  and  does. 

I  am  sure  that  the  maternal  instinct  is  the 
strongest  force  within  me,  and  I  always  had, 
even  as  a  child,  to  "mother"  something.  I  was 
not  content  with  adoring  my  own  babies,  but  I 
felt  obliged  to  worship  other  people's  as  well.  I 
founded  a  creche  in  the  country;  and  as  it  was 
always  full  to  overflowing  with  babies,  I  simply 
revelled  there  in  a  world  made  up  of  little 
children.  I  used  to  wash  and  dress  them,  I 
romped  on  the  floor  with  them,  and  allowed 
them  to  pull  my  hair  and  hug  me  just  as  much 
as  ever  they  liked. 

One  day  I  was  carrying  a  pretty  baby  up  and 
down  in  the  sunny  garden  outside  the  house, 
when  I  noticed  a  workman  who  was  critically 
watching  me  over  the  palings  which  separated 
the  garden  from  the  road. 

I  smiled  and  said  "Good -morning,"  and  as  I 
came  near  him  I  could  see  from  the  look  of  love 
and  pride  in  his  eyes  that  he  was  the  father  of 
the  baby.  "You  must  love  this  sweet  little 
one,"  I  said,  for  the  baby  was  crowing  with  joy 
and  holding  out  its  hands. 


MY  OWN  STORY  171 

"Who  are  you?''  asked  the  man  abruptly. 

"I  am  the  Princess  Louisa,"  I  answered. 

"  You,  the  Princess!" 

"Certainly." 

"Well,  if  you  are  the  Princess,  you  had  better 
know  at  once  that  this  child  belongs  to  a  despised 
Socialist — who  hates  all  'Royalties,'  and  wishes 
them  at  the  devil,"  said  the  man,  rudely  and 
defiantly. 

I  looked  at  him:  then  I  said  very  quietly, 
"Whether  this  child  belongs  to  a  Socialist  or 
not  is  all  one  to  me;  I  only  see  a  sweet  baby." 

The  man  burst  into  tears. 

*  *  Pardon  me ,  Royal  Highness , "  he  stammered . 
''Now  I  understand  why  you  are  called  'Our 
Louisa. ' "  I  afterwards  heard  that  he  told  his 
own  "Section"  he  could  never  again  hate 
' '  Royalties , ' '  after  having  seen  me  carrying  his 
child. 


CHAPTER  X 


The  Court  circle — "Noah's  Ark** — Calico  and  crochet — 
Drink  and  gambling — The  German  Emperor — His  power 
in  Saxony — The  invasion  of  England — The  Arch- 
duke Franz- Ferdinand  as  a  possible  ally — The  Opera 
at  Dresden — /  see  it  from  the  gallery — The  affair 
of  the  ''collier'' — ''Faust"  at  the  Court  Theatre — 
Royal  visitors. 


173 


CHAPTER  X 


T^HE  Court  circle  at  Dresden,  during  the 
whole  time  I  lived  in  Saxony,  was  com- 
posed of  the  most  narrow-minded,  evil-speaking, 
and  conceited  collection  of  human  beings  it  is 
possible  to  imagine.  I  nicknamed  it  "Noah's 
Ark,"  and,  indeed,  some  of  the  people  with 
whom  I  came  into  contact  might  almost  have 
been  described  as  antediluvian.  I  used  to 
wonder  why  they  existed,  for,  like  most  super- 
fluous persons,  they  had  a  great  knack  of  boring 
others  excessively  and  annoying  them  in  small 
ways  at  the  same  time. 

The  Saxon  aristocracy  have  the  rooted  idea 
that  their  mission  in  life  is  to  keep  up  appear- 
ances, and  I  think  they  really  believe  that  God 
created  them  solely  to  show  an  admiring  world 
what  it  is  possible  for  paragons  of  perfection  to 
be.  Their  pride  of  birth  and  rank  is  nauseating 
to  any  one  who  is  intellectual  and  broad-minded ; 
and,  under  the  pretext  of  safeguarding  their 
own  virtue,   they  pry,   even  by  subterranean 

175 


176  MY  OWN  STORY 

methods,  into  affairs  which  do  not  concern  them 
in  the  least.  They  live,  move,  and  have  their 
being  merely  as  automata,  and  they  are  as  stiff 
and  expressionless  as  the  Dutch  dolls  of  our 
childhood.  The  majority  of  the  aristocracy 
were  not  over-blessed  with  wealth,  and  the 
question  of  dress  did  not  trouble  the  women  to 
any  great  extent.  They  had  no  idea  of  ele- 
gance, and  they  were,  as  a  rule,  too  stupid  and 
heavy  even  to  indulge  in  a  harmless  flirtation. 
I  used  to  look  at  some  of  these  ladies  in  despair, 
but  as  their  appearance  at  the  Court  balls  gave 
a  touch  of  humour  to  these  deadly  dull  functions, 
I  had  after  all  something  for  which  to  be  grateful. 

I  remember  that  on  one  occasion  a  girl  slipped 
on  the  parquet  floor  of  the  ballroom,  and  fell 
most  ungracefully  in  a  heap,  from  which  there 
presently  emerged  a  pair  of  unattractive  limbs 
covered  with  the  most  extraordinary  hose.  Silk 
stockings  had  evidently  not  been  considered 
necessary,  so  she  had  economically  re-footed  a 
pair  of  cotton  ones.  She  wore  a  red  and  white 
twill  petticoat,  and  a  glimpse  of  her  lingerie 
conclusively  proved  that  the  young  lady  was 
a  believer  in  crochet  and  calico,  and  scorned 
such  luxuries  as  lawn  and  lace. 

The  upper  middle-class  and  the  commercial 


MY  OWN  STORY  177 

community  are  the  backbone  of  the  Saxon  na- 
tion, and  they  are  happily  free  from  the  fatuous 
failings  and  dulness  of  the  aristocracy.  They 
alone  are  the  "intellectuals,"  who  think  and 
understand,  and,  I  may  add,  the  only  ones  who 
count  in  my  estimation. 

The  prosperous  merchant  is  better  bred  and  far 
more  agreeable  than  any  pompous  Marechal  de 
la  Cour,  and  the  ordinary  clever  lawyer  or  medi- 
cal man  is  superior  to  any  so-called  clever  cour- 
tier. When  I  kicked  mentally  against  the 
impossible  life  I  was  obliged  to  lead,  I  always 
wished  that  I  could  have  a  sort  of  spring  clean- 
ing of  my  entourage,  and  that  those  who  were 
beyond  redemption  could  be  consigned  to  the 
lumber-rooms. 

The  aristocracy  gamble  and  drink  a  great  deal 
too  much,  and  the  young  officers  make  up  for 
not  having  much  money  by  owing  all  they  can. 
Saxony  is  dominated  by  the  Emperor  William, 
who  watches  events  from  afar,  and  nobody  dares 
do  anything  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Mars  of 
Berlin.  The  army  is  absolutely  influenced  by 
him,  and  although  the  fact  is  always  denied, 
he  alone  is  the  unseen  ruling  power,  and  al- 
though there  is  much  secret  discontent,  it 
never  becomes  open  rebellion. 


178  MY  OWN  STORY 

If  I  had  remained  in  Saxony,  I  think  I  should 
have  been  friendly  with  the  Emperor,  as  I  never 
shared  the  mistrust  of  him  which  seems  to  be 
the  prevalent  feeling  whenever  he  is  discussed. 
I  am  sure  he  does  not  entertain  any  real  affection 
for  England,  and  no  people  are  better  aware  of 
this  than  the  English  themselves.  Whenever  he 
visits  the  English  Royal  Family,  it  is  amusing 
to  see  how  the  newspapers  dwell  on  the  ties  of 
blood  which  connect  the  two  houses,  but  every- 
body knows  that,  au  fond,  William  would 
never  allow  consideration  for  his  mother's  rela- 
tives to  weigh  one  moment  against  the  interests 
of  his  own  country. 

I  do  not  think  there  is  any  possibility  of  the 
"great  invasion"  taking  place  for  some  time. 
The  Emperor  knows  that  the  financial  state  of 
Germany  is  not  favourable  at  the  moment  for 
war,  and  he  is  also  fully  aware  that,  even  if  the 
English  army  leaves  a  great  deal  to  be  desired, 
the  navy  is  unspoilt,  and  England,  even  in  her 
partial  decadence,  still  remains  the  Mistress  of 
the  Seas. 

I  do  not  think  the  Kaiser  will  ever  become 
the  ally  of  Austria  in  a  war  against  England. 
A  great  deal  has  been  written  lately  about  my 
cousin   Franz-Ferdinand,   the   future  Emperor 


MY  OWN  STORY  179 

of  Austria,  who  is  supposed  to  favour  this  idea, 
but  I  am  sure  he  has  no  wish  for  hostilities 
with  any  nation;  at  any  rate,  when  I  knew 
him  he  was  the  most  non-poHtical  personage 
possible.  I  saw  him  just  before  his  marriage 
with  the  clever  Countess  Chotek,  and  he 
took  no  pains  to  conceal  from  me  how  dis- 
tasteful to  him  was  the  idea  of  becoming 
Emperor.  "I  prefer  shooting,"  he  said,  "and 
I  like  a  quiet  life;  I  never  could  be  worried 
with  politics."  I  have  heard  that  since  his 
marriage,  Franz-Ferdinand  has  been  entirely 
dominated  by  the  Jesuits,  that  his  health  is 
precarious,  and  that  he  is  looked  upon  by  his 
doctors  as  a  consumptive.  Two  years  ago  he 
went  to  Egypt,  and  was  supposed  to  return 
"cured,"  but  I  hear  rumours  that  he  is  again 
suffering  from  lung  trouble. 

The  "five-o'clock"  exists  in  Dresden  society, 
but  coffee  and  cakes  are  substituted  for  tea  and 
bread  and  butter.  It  is  a  hateful  fimction,  but 
one  dear  to  the  hostess  and  her  visitors,  as, 
between  the  intervals  of  "  gobbling  "  their  cakes 
(this  is  the  only  word  to  describe  their  method  of 
eating),  they  busily  devour  other  people's  repu- 
tations. I  was  hedged  about  with  etiquette  to 
an  extent  which  no  outsider  can  imagine,  and 


i8o  MY  OWN  STORY 

my  spirit  was  truly  in  prison.  \Vhenever  I 
tried  to  be  my  natural  self,  I  was  at  once 
"suppressed"  by  my  husband's  family,  and 
although  Frederick-August  was  a  very  good 
comrade,  he  never  seemed  able  to  shake  off  a 
childish  dread  of  his  father.  I  used  to  say  that 
my  lady  of  the  bedchamber  was  the  only  person 
who  was  allowed  to  "take  a  liberty,"  for  she 
was  permitted  by  custom  to  enter  my  bedroom 
unannounced  whenever  she  pleased. 

The  one  oasis  to  me  in  this  dreary  desert 
of  Court  life  was  the  Opera,  which  I  attended 
as  often  as  I  possibly  could.  Both  the  Opera 
and  the  Cotut  Theatre  are  under  the  complete 
control  of  the  King  of  Saxony,  who  pays  all 
expenses  connected  with  them;  the  Opera  used 
to  cost  three  million  marks  a  year. 

How  I  loved  the  performances!  Stage, 
artistes,  and  audience  faded  away,  and  I  only 
heard  the  beautiful  voices,  and  the  exquisite 
music  which  filled  my  soul  with  ecstasy,  and 
transported  me  to  another  world  where  I  could 
roam  fancy  free  and  be  happy. 

Of  course,  as  patrons  of  the  Opera,  the 
Royal  Family  were  always  more  or  less  in 
evidence,  and  I  sometimes  wondered  as  I  looked 
round  the  crowded  house  whether  the  majority 


MY  OWN  STORY  i8i 

of  the  audience  really  appreciated  music,  or 
went  merely  in  a  kind  of  follow-my -leader  way 
to  hear  it.  I  did  not  concern  myself  with  the 
feelings  of  the  dressed-up  dolls  I  so  cordially 
detested,  but  I  was  curious  to  know  the  opinions 
of  the  thinking  class.  At  last  my  curiosity 
became  so  great  that  I  decided  to  find  out  for 
myself,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  see  the 
opera  and  royalty  from  the  gallery  as  an  or- 
dinary spectator.  I  took  my  children's  old 
nurse  into  my  confidence,  and,  needless  to  say, 
she  was  at  first  shocked  and  alarmed  at  my 
proposal. 

"It  is  impossible,  Imperial  Highness,"  said 
she;  "imagine  what  would  happen  if  you  were 
recognised,  and  your  august  father-in-law  heard 
about  it."  I  overruled  her  objections,  however, 
and  she  gradually  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the 
adventure;  so  one  evening  she  informed  my 
attendants,  with  the  utmost  gravity,  that 
*'the  Princess  had  a  bad  headache,  and  desired 
to  be  left  entirely  undisturbed." 

We  lost  no  time  in  making  our  preparations, 
and  with  the  aid  of  a  red  wig,  some  skilful 
"make-up,"  a  black  dress,  and  a  plain  hat,  I 
transformed  myself  into  one  of  the  "gods."  We 
stole  out  of  the  palace  by  a  side  entrance  and 


i82  MY  OWN  :^TORY 

luckily  were  quite  unobserved.  It  was  a  fine, 
cold  winter's  night,  and  the  frosty  air,  and 
my  sense  of  adventure,  gave  me  a  delightful 
feeling  of  exhilaration  and  freedom.  We  walked 
through  the  snow  to  the  Opera  House,  and  I 
still  felt  like  a  joyiul  truant  when  I  paid  for  our 
seats  and  at  last  found  myself  in  a  tightly  packed 
row  of  the  gallery. 

I  was  intensely  excited,  and  very  pleased  to 
be  with  my  dear  people.  I  was  quite  happy,  and 
when  my  neighbours  chatted  to  me  I  was  more 
delighted  than  ever,  and  smiled  to  myself  as  I 
thought  how  they  would  have  stared  had  they 
known  who  I  was.  From  my  coign  of  vantage 
I  watched  the  arrival  of  my  "illustrious"  re- 
lations with  tremendous  interest.  First  the 
King  and  Queen  took  their  seats  in  the  royal 
box ;  then  Mathilde  made  her  appearance  in  her 
famous  framboise  gown,  then  came  John-George, 
dreaming  of  Popes,  and  last  my  kind,  good- 
looking  husband,  with  his  father.  Directly  the 
"gods"  saw  the  King  and  Queen,  a  volley  of 
comments  arose  on  all  sides,  and  I  had  a  hard 
task  to  keep  from  laughing  when  I  heard  the 
remarks  of  the  people  on  their  rulers. 

"What  a  lot  of  mummies  they  look,"  said  a 
young  girl  contemptuously. 


MY  OWN  STORY  183 

"Mathilde  is  too  mean  to  buy  a  new  dress, 
that 's  an  old  friend  she  's  wearing,"  remarked 
another. 

"What  a  pity  she  does  n't  take  something  to 
bring  down  her  fat,"  said  a  third. 

"How  severe  Prince  George  looks;  it  would 
do  him  good  to  rehearse  the  ballet  instead  of 
going  so  much  to  church,"  and  every  one  tittered 
at  this  audacious  sally,  myself  included,  for  the 
mental  picture  of  my  father-in-law  instructing 
gauzy-skirted  coryphees  in  the  steps  in  which 
they  should  go,  was  too  much  for  my  gravity. 

And  then  the  question  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  "Where  's  Louisa?  She  's  late,  perhaps 
she  's  not  coming.  What  a  pity !  She  's  the 
only  human  being  of  the  lot,"  and  so  on,  until 
the  curtain  rose. 

I  remained  for  one  act,  and  I  was  astonished 
to  discover  how  well  the  people  really  appre- 
ciated music,  and  how  much  they  knew  about 
technique  and  style;  it  was  a  revelation  to  me, 
but  it  proved  to  my  entire  satisfaction  that  my 
idea  of  the  mental  acquirements  of  the  middle- 
class  was  quite  right. 

I  took  tea  with  my  unsuspecting  family  after 
their  return  from  the  Opera  and,  as  I  looked 
at  my  father-in-law,   I  thought  that,  had  he 


i84  MY  OWN  STORY 

known  of  my  escapade,  I  should  doubtless  have 
been  immured  in  a  convent  for  the  rest  of  my 
natural  life. 

The  Opera  is  always  associated  in  my  mind 
w4th  an  incident  which  I  shall  describe  as  the 
"  Affair  of  the  Collier/'  As  every  one  knows, 
the  emeralds  of  the  King  of  Saxony  have  a 
world-wide  reputation,  and  when  I  was  married, 
they  were  given  me  to  wear,  set  mixed  with 
diamonds  in  a  tiara,  necklace,  and  bracelets.  I 
was  delighted  to  possess  the  wonderful  stones, 
but  I  did  not  like  the  heavy  settings,  so  I  asked, 
and  received,  permission  to  have  the  necklace 
made  smaller. 

The  beauty  of  the  stones,  and  my  sense  of  the 
artistic,  resulted  in  my  ordering  an  entirely  new 
collier  in  a  lovely  Renaissance  design.  I  decided 
to  wear  it  at  a  gala  performance,  and  chose  a 
delightful  rose  chiffon  gown  to  act  as  a  foil  to 
its  mysterious  green  splendour;  and  it  was  with 
conscious  pride  in  my  appearance  that  I  seated 
myself  in  my  box  opposite  to  the  King  and  Queen, 
who  were  on  the  other  side  of  the  Opera  House. 

Directly  they  saw  me,  they  stared,  and  stared 
again,  with  opera-glasses  levelled  at  my  collier. 
A  whispered  consultation  took  place,  and  I  was 
summoned  to  the  royal  box.     The  King  received 


MY  OWN  STORY  185 

me  very  coldly,  and  asked  me  how  I  dared  alter 
the  family  heirlooms. 

"Well,"  I  said  quite  unabashed,  "I  dared 
because  the  setting  was  hideous.  The  emeralds 
were  given  to  me  to  wear,  and  I  did  not  like 
them  in  their  original  setting,  and  I  think  they 
are  ten  times  more  beautiful  now." 

There  was  a  frightful  scene.  Voices  were 
raised,  and  a  violent  altercation  took  place  which 
afforded  great  interest  to  the  people  in  the  stalls, 
who  listened  with  all  their  ears  to  this  undignified 
quarrel. 

We  seemed  always  to  be  bickering  about 
something,  and  I  remember  how  cross  my 
father-in-law  was  over  a  performance  of  Faust 
at  the  Court  Theatre.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  one  passage  in  the  play  speaks  very  dis- 
respectfully about  the  insatiate  greed  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Chiu"ch,  and  this  so  offended 
Prince  George  that  he  ordered  the  actor  who 
declaimed  it  to  "cut  it  out." 

When  Faust  was  next  played,  the  actor  out 
of  sheer  bravado  did  not  omit  the  lines,  with 
the  result  that  my  father-in-law  at  once  left  the 
theatre,  and  he  was  mean  enough  to  insinuate 
that  it  was  I  who  had  instigated  the  actor's 
defiance  of  orders. 


1 86  MY  OWN  STORY 

We  rarely  received  Royal  visitors  at  Dresden ; 
the  late  King  of  Siam  came  one  year,  and  great 
festivities  took  place  in  his  honour.  His  nephew, 
who  was  a  clever  man,  accompanied  him,  and  I 
was  both  interested  and  amused  at  his  view  of 
our  Court;  the  King  himself  was  stupid.  He 
invariably  remarked  to  every  one  he  met,  "How 
did  you  enjoy  your  trip?"  but  as  nobody  knew 
to  what  trip  he  referred,  it  was  difficult  to  answer. 
Chulalonkom  visited  the  galleries,  but  the  only 
pictures  he  appreciated  were  studies  from  the 
nude,  and  he  was  sublimely  indifferent  to  other 
masterpieces. 

The  Duke  of  Connaught  also  came  to  Dresden, 
I  fancy  with  a  "Garter"  mission,  and  I  was 
most  favourably  impressed  by  him.  He  seemed 
to  possess  the  qualities  which  endear  their 
owners  to  every  one  who  knows  them,  and  I 
thought  he  was  a  man  of  sound  judgment  and 
no  little  skill  in  military  matters. 


CHAPTER  XI 


Why  and  wherefore — Explanations — Mixed  blood — A 
story  of  the  French  Revolution — The  bicycle  craze — 
/  am  reprimanded — Petty  tyranny — The  pearl  neck- 
lace— The  recipe  for  a  popular  Queen  of  Saxony 


187 


CHAPTER  XI 


f  NOW  approach  the  most  difficult  part  of  my 

story,  and  that  is  an  endeavour  to  show  the 

outside  world  the  conditions  and  events  which 

finally  led  up  to  my  departure  from  Dresden. 

It    is   a   Herculean   labour   for   any   maligned 

woman  to  clear  her  character  effectually  when 

once  it  has  been  besmirched,  and  I  am  sure 

the  world  can  never  realise  what  I  have  suffered 

through  Court  intrigue. 

Looking  at  myself  analytically,  I  wonder  what 

I  ever  did  to  inspire  my  husband's  family  with 

the  malignant  hatred  they  invariably  displayed 

towards  me.     I  came  to  Dresden  little  more 

than  a  girl,  but  with  a  woman's  sense  of  my 

responsibility  and  duties;   I   was  quite  willing 

to   try  to  please,   and   I   am  vain  enough   to 

think  that  I  endeared  myself  to  the  people; 

it  was  only  those  who  considered  themselves 

my    equals    who    treated    me    with    persistent 

coldness  and  mistrust. 

I  have  always  wondered  why  a  Habsburg 
189 


I90  MY  OWN  STORY 

princess  was  selected  as  a  wife  for  Frederick- 
August,  especially  one  of  my  branch.  The 
mixture  of  French,  Italian,  and  Habsburg 
blood  in  my  veins  should  have  made  any 
stolid  family  think  seriously  before  they  asked 
the  possessor  to  marry  one  of  its  members, 
for,  as  my  father-in-law  said,  with  perfect 
truth,  the  Habsburg-Bourbon  temperament  is 
peculiar.  All  my  ancestors  had  bequeathed 
to  me  something  of  their  various  individualities. 
I  inherited  from  the  Bourbons  my  love  of 
the  beautiful,  my  delight  in  all  that  appealed 
to  the  finer  senses,  and  their  supreme  disregard 
for  the  opinions  of  those  they  disliked  or  de- 
spised. The  imperious  will  of  the  "Sun  King" 
became  in  me  a  compelling  force  urging  me  to 
make  myself  and  my  actions  felt,  and  I  revolted 
at  the  narrowness  of  the  circle  in  which  I  found 
myself.  Just  as  Louis  XIV.  transformed  waste 
lands  into  the  emerald  parterres  of  Versailles, 
and  eventually  made  the  wilderness  blossom 
like  the  rose,  so  I  longed  to  remove  all  obstacles, 
and  beautify  my  life.  My  ancestor  could 
transplant  trees,  construct  aqueducts,  raise 
stately  palaces  as  if  by  magic;  but  all  these 
were  simple  things  compared  with  the  task  I 
set  myself  after  I  came  to  Dresden. 


Photo  by  Hahn,  Drebden. 

MYSELF    IN    FANCY    DRESS   AS    MARIE-ANTOINETTE 
191 


MY  OWN  STORY  193 

From  the  Habsburgs  I  had  as  a  legacy  that 
absolute  independence  of  thought  and  deed, 
which  has  always  been  so  strange  in  members 
of  an  Imperial  House  hide-bound  by  etiquette 
and  tradition.  Most  of  us  Habsburgs  have 
artistic  tastes,  most  of  us  desire  to  live  lives 
built  on  large  and  noble  lines,  and  most  of  us 
have  that  curious  mental  "kink"  which  has 
driven  some  to  suicide,  banishment,  or  self- 
effacement. 

I  think  I  have  always  possessed  some  of  the 
strong  masculine  will  of  Maria-Theresa,  and 
Marie-Antoinette  certainly  bequeathed  me  her 
courage  in  trouble.  Like  her,  I  have  experienced 
calumny,  gross  indignities,  misrepresentations, 
bitter  partings,  and  like  her  (until  now)  I  have 
always  disdained  to  explain.  I  am  sure  that 
if  I  had  lived  during  the  French  Revolution  I 
should  have  been  as  supremely  indifferent  to 
my  fate  as  the  great-great-grandmother  of  a 
friend  of  mine.  The  story  goes  that  when  it 
came  to  her  turn  to  ascend  the  steps  of  the 
guillotine,  she  was  accompanied  by  a  girl  who, 
like  herself,  had  been  a  habituee  of  Versailles. 

These  ladies  were  the  last  to  suffer,  and  the 

blood  of  the  other  victims  had  made  the  planks 

slippery  and  wet.     Turning  to  her  friend  the 
13 


194  ^^y  OWN  STORY 

elder  woman  said,  "My  dear,  pray  be  careful, 
this  horrid  mess  will  soil  your  skirt,"  and  she 
gathered  up  her  dress  to  prevent  even  the  hem 
becoming  stained,   seemingly  oblivious  of  the 
fact  that  in  a  few  seconds  both  she  and  her 
companion  would  be  out  of  a  world  in  which 
disregard  of  the  canaille,  and  attention  to  the 
co7ivenances  were  the  only  things  that  mattered. 
The  unfortunate  tendency  of  the  Habsburg 
to  escape  for  a  time  from  anything  irksome, 
became  w4th  Marie- Antoinette  a  desire  to  play 
the  Fermiere  at  Trianon,  and  with  me  a  wish 
to  lead  a  free  life;  but  unluckily  Dresden  did 
not  possess  a  Trianon,  and,  Frederick- August 
was  not  strong-willed  enough   to  call  a  substi- 
tute into  existence,  so  I  was  kept  in  perpetual 
restraint.     I    shall   never   blame   my   husband 
for  the  unwilling  part  he  played  in  the  tragedy 
of  my  life.     The  King  of  Saxony  is  an  absolutely 
good   man;   he  is   affectionate,    upright,  pure- 
minded,   and  his  fatal  weakness  of  character 
in  great  crises  is  solely  due  to  his  inborn  in- 
decision of  temperament,   and  his  fear  of  his 
father.     Frederick- August  can  act  well  for  him- 
self and  others  in  the  ordinary  things  of  life, 
but  directly  he  is  confronted  with  a  situation 
that    agitates    or   perplexes   him,    he    loses  his 


MY  husband:  a  snapshot  taken  by  myself 


195 


MY  OWN  STORY  197 

grip  and  relies  on  the  opinions  of  stronger 
minds. 

My  worries  really  began  actively  when  the 
bicycle  craze  affected  Dresden  society.  I  was 
very  anxious  to  learn,  and  asked  my  husband 
whether  he  had  any  objection  to  my  doing  so. 
He  was  quite  in  favour  of  it,  and  I  arranged 
to  take  private  lessons,  always,  of  course, 
accompanied  by  a  lady-in-waiting. 

I  enjoyed  myself  thoroughly  at  first,  but  my 
pleasure  was  only  fleeting,  for  one  day  I  was 
somewhat  hastily  summoned  by  King  Albert 
and  Queen  Carola  on  a  matter  of  private  im- 
portance. They  received  me  with  marked 
coldness,  and  the  Queen  said  in  displeased 
tones,  "I  hear,  Louisa,  that  you  are  learning 
to  ride  the  bicycle." 

"Certainly,"  I  replied. 

"Well,"  said  the  King,  "bicycling  is  not  an 
amusement  for  a  princess,  and  you  ought  to 
know  it,  Louisa." 

"Yes,"  chimed  in  Queen  Carola,  "and  even  if 
you  had  contemplated  it,  you  should  have  asked 
my  permission  before  you  took  lessons." 

"I  had  my  husband's  permission,"  I  answered 
coldly;  "I  considered  it  quite  sufficient." 

"Frederick -August's    permission    does     not 


198  MY  OWN  STORY 

signify,"  replied  the  Queen.  "You  apparently 
ignore  etiquette;  please  remember  that  I  am 
the  Queen,  and  that  it  is  your  duty  to  consult 
me  in  eveiy thing  you  do." 

I  was  furious,  and  told  her  that  my  father 
allowed  my  sisters  to  bicycle,  and  what  he 
thought  right,  must  be  right.  All  my  argimients 
were  received  with  supercilious  disdain,  and  I 
left  in  a  tempest  of  anger  and  wounded  pride. 
When  I  reached  home,  I  poured  out  my  wrongs 
to  Frederick -August,  who,  good  soul,  was  all 
for  peace.  I  therefore  let  the  matter  drop, 
and  did  not  go  on  with  my  lessons. 

Some  days  elapsed,  and  I  received  a  little  note 
from  the  Queen,  asking  me  to  come  and  see 
her. 

"My  dear  child,"  she  began.  "I  've  really 
something  very  unpleasant  to  say." 

I  waited  in  silence  for  the  gathering  storm  to 
break,  but,  as  the  thunder  still  seemed  in  the 
distance,  I  said,  with  the  courage  of  perfect 
innocence, 

"Well,  tell  me  what  it  is,  Auntie." 

She  hesitated,  and  then  answered  hurriedly: 

"Well,  Louisa,  Madame  X.  came  to-day  on 
purpose  to  inform  me  that  last  evening  you  were 
seen  in  the  Grosser  Garten  riding  a  bicycle  in 


MY  OWN  STORY  199 

KNICKERBOCKERS,  escortcd  by  two  actors  from 
the  Court  Theatre." 

I  looked  at  her  in  silent  amazement,  and  then 
burst  out  laughing. 

"WTiat  a  lie,'*  I  cried.  "Why,  since  our  last 
interview  when  you  expressed  a  wish  that  I 
should  not  ride  a  bicycle  I  've  discontinued  my 
lessons."  Then  anger  completely  mastered  me 
at  the  thought  of  the  malice  which  had  inspired 
such  a  report,  and  I  said:  "Who  is  your  in- 
formant? Tell  me  at  once — ^bring  her  to  me, 
I  wish  to  speak  to  her." 

"No,  no,  Louisa,  that's  impossible,  I  have 
promised  not  to  tell." 

This  made  me  angrier  than  ever.  "How 
dare  you,"  I  cried,  "accuse  me,  and  not  allow 
me  to  face  my  accuser?" 

I  knew  that  this  story  was  assiduously  cir- 
culated all  over  Dresden,  and  I  was  contemptu- 
ously amused  at  it,  so  when  I  was  again  sent 
for  by  Queen  Carola  about  a  month  afterwards, 
I  said,  without  any  preamble:  "Am  I  arraigned 
once  more?" 

The  Queen  was  all  smiles. 

"Arraigned?  Certainly  not,  dearest  Louisa. 
I  've  sent  for  you  to  tell  you  that  you  may  ride 
the  bicycle  after  all,  because  I  have  just  learned 


eoo  MY  OWN  STORY 

that  the  German  Emperor  allows  his  sister, 
Princess  Frederick-Leopold,  to  ride  one  in 
Berlin!"  ...  I  looked  at  the  Queen,  who 
was  beaming  with  joy  at  the  seal  of  approval 
set  on  bicycles  by  the  Emperor,  and  I  felt  some 
pity  for  this  example-swayed  old  lady. 

"Well,  Auntie,"  I  observed  satirically,  "your 
opinions  are  easily  changed;  that  's  something 
to  be  thankful  for,  at  any  rate." 

These  petty  tyrannies  soon  began  to  have  a 
bad  effect  on  me:  I  grew  hard  and  regardless 
of  what  I  said,  and  occasionally  did  things  out 
of  sheer  defiance  to  the  existing  powers.  My 
father-in-law  never  lost  an  opportunity  of 
goading  me  to  desperation,  and  he  was  usually 
most  vulgar  in  his  methods. 

Once  when  we  were  dining  at  the  Castle  of 
Pillnitz,  I  was  wearing  a  beautiful  rope  of  three 
hundred  and  seventy  pearls  which  had  formerly 
belonged  to  my  half-sister  Marie -Antoinette. 
Suddenly  the  string  broke,  and  the  pearls  rolled 
in  all  directions  over  the  carpet,  under  tables 
and  chairs  and  in  all  kinds  of  impossible  places. 
Naturally  active  search  at  once  commenced  for 
the  loose  pearls,  and  the  Chamberlain  and  most 
of  the  officers  present  very  good -natiu:edly_ went 
down  on  their  knees  to  look  for  them. 


MY  OWN  STORY  201 

My  father-in-law  stopped  eating  and  regarded 
the  proceedings  with  an  affectation  of  cynical 
interest;  then  he  slowly  remarked:  "Ah  .  .  . 
in  the  rescuers  of  the  pearls,  we  doubtless  see 
these  fortunate  gentlemen  in  whom  the  Princess 
takes  a  tender  interest."  He  never  lost  an 
opportunity  of  annoying  me,  and  at  last  I 
regarded  him  with  positive  hatred.  My  children 
also  disliked  him,  and  whenever  they  were  told 
they  were  going  to  visit  their  grandfather,  they 
would  scream  and  roll  on  the  floor — in  fact  do 
anything  to  avoid  meeting  him. 

I  remember  once  when  he  unexpectedly  con- 
fronted the  rolling  tangle  of  angry  little  boys,  he 
looked  from  them  to  me,  and  said:  "It  is  easy  to 
see  what  kind  of  an  education  you  give  your 
children,  Louisa." 

My  mistress  of  the  robes  once  strongly 
advised  me  to  model  myself  on  the  pattern  of 
Queen  Carola,  and  harangued  me  somewhat  on 
these  lines:  "We  are  quite  satisfied  v/ith  you, 
Imperial  Highness,  if  you  consent  to  open 
exhibitions,  receive  people  agreeably,  show 
yourself  in  pretty  toilettes,  and  chat  freely — ■ 
when  occasion  offers.  What  do  you  want  more? 
It  is  your  destiny  to  become  a  queen,  why  do 
you  try  to  escape  from  it?     You  must  be  quite 


202  MY  OWN  STORY 

aware  that  it  does  n't  do  for  a  queen  to  have 
'feelings.'  She  is  selected  to  continue  her 
husband's  dynasty,  and  what  more  does  she 
expect?" 

"Are  queens  ever  allowed  to  be  human?" 
I  asked. 

"Certainly,  Imperial  Highness,  a  queen  may 
love  her  husband,  but  she  must  not  be  vulgarly 
demonstrative  in  her  affection.  It  must  be  con- 
ducted on  the  lines  of  etiquette  even  in  intimate 
moments,  and  she  must  not  attempt  to  display 
the  emotions  of  an  ordinary  woman." 

"Ah,"  I  remarked.  "I  suppose  that  a  Queen 
of  Saxony  who  will  be  welcome  and  popular  at 
Court  ought  to  be  selected  from  a  manufactory 
of  automatons,  for  a  female  automaton  seems  to 
be  all  you  require.  So  long  as  it  is  well  dressed, 
hien  coiffee,  and  can  bow,  smile,  eat,  and  walk,  it 
will  suffice  (always  of  course  hien  entendu  that 
it  can  provide  an  heir).  Listen,"  I  added 
emphatically,  "a  living,  loving  woman  with  a 
heart  and  brain  who  knows  that  a  world  exists 
outside  the  palace,  will  always  suffer  through 
creatures  like  you  with  your  hateful  opinions 
and  your  appalling  ignorance  of  life,"  and  the 
conversation  ended.  • 


CHAPTER  XII 


Sturm  und  Drang — Death  of  King  Albert — An  uncom- 
fortable journey — The  woman  in  black — At  Sibyllen- 
ort — Family  disputes — "  Le  Roi  est  mort" — We 
return  to  Dresden — A  thirsty  princess — /  meet  the 
German  Emperor — ''My  political  friend'^ — King 
Albert's  funeral — A  wreath  of  water-lilies — The 
spectral  cat — The  midwife's  prophecy. 


2Q3 


CHAPTER  XII 


IN  the  summer  of  1902  we  were  in  the  country, 
but  our  usually  pleasant  holiday  was  clouded 
by  the  serious  condition  of  King  Albert,  who  was 
on  the  point  of  death.  The  King  and  Queen 
were  staying  at  the  Castle  of  Sibyllenort  near 
Breslau  in  Silesia,  a  beautiful  residence  given  by 
the  last  Duke  of  Brunswick  to  the  then  King  of 
Saxony.  The  castle  contains  four  hundred 
rooms,  and  it  was  the  scene  of  many  scandalous 
orgies,  in  the  later  'forties.  The  Duke,  who  was 
a  great  admirer  of  the  fair  sex,  had  a  private 
theatre  there,  and  the  ballet  was  composed  of 
numerous  pretty  girls  whom  he  kept  in  harem- 
like seclusion.  I  remember  seeing  some  rather 
startling  pictures  when  I  visited  the  castle  as  a 
girl  of  sixteen,  but  these  were  very  properly 
banished  by  Queen  Carola's  orders,  and  Sibyllen- 
ort became  a  highly  decorous  royal  residence. 
The  King  was  constantly  approached  by  the 

Prussian  Government,  who  wished  to  purchase 

205 


206  MY  OWN  STORY 

the  estate,  but  he  would  not  sell,  as  he  liked  the 
place,  and  used  often  to  stay  there. 

I  received  my  first  intimation  that  I  had 
become  Crown  Princess  of  Saxony  on  the  tele- 
phone, when  I  was  rung  up  from  Sibyllenort, 
and  told  the  news  of  King  Albert's  death.  We 
at  once  left  for  Breslau,  with  all  the  usual  rush 
and  excitement  of  an  unexpected  journey.  My 
maids  were  seated  in  their  coupe,  when  a  woman 
in  black,  carrying  a  covered  basket,  got  in  just  as 
the  train  was  starting.  The  maids  naturally 
wondered  who  she  was,  and  somewhat  resented 
the  intrusion  on  their  privacy  by  a  stranger,  but 
the  woman  in  black  soon  satisfied  them  as  to  her 
identity, 

"Well,"  she  began,  "I  had  indeed  a  rush  to 
catch  this  train;  I  don't  know  what  would  have 
happened  to  me  if  I  had  missed  it." 

Receiving  looks  of  interest,  she  went  on:  "I 
dare  say  you  wonder  who  I  am — and  what  is 
my  business.  Well,  I  am  the  woman  chosen  by 
the  late  King's  physicians  to  assist  at  the 
autopsy;  I  consider  it  a  great  honour." 

The  maids  were  rather  disconcerted,  and  the 
woman  continued:  "You  see,  I'm  very  reliable, 
and  you  might  remember  my  name  if  a  death 
takes  place  in  the  Crown  Prince's  family!" 


MY  OWN  STORY  207 

At  this  juncture  the  wicker  basket  heaved  con- 
vulsively; the  assistant  of  physicians  opened  it, 
and  out  jumped  a  lovely  little  dachshund. 
"This  is  my  sweet  dog,"  explained  the  owner. 
"I  was  terrified  lest  I  should  be  forbidden  to 
bring  him  with  me,  and  we  don't  like  to  be 
separated,  do  we,  dearest?"  she  said  addressing 
her  pet.  This  incident,  which  revealed  a  very 
himian  side  of  her  character,  made  the  maids 
more  tolerant  of  the  woman's  profession,  and 
they  became  quite  friendly  long  before  Breslau 
was  reached. 

It  was  a  dreadful  journey;  we  travelled  all 
night,  and  nobody  had  any  rest  as  the  sleeping 
car  was  infested  with  fleas  which  came  out  in 
battalions,  thirsting  for  our  blood.  John-George 
accompanied  us,  and  bored  us  extremely,  by 
assuming  the  airs  of  a  mentor  and  overwhelming 
Frederick- August  with  good  advice. 

We  arrived  at  Breslau  next  morning,  and  drove 
in  the  royal  carriages  to  Sibyllenort,  which  we 
reached  about  7.30  a.m.  My  father-in-law  was 
waiting  to  receive  us,  and  I  was  much  shocked 
at  his  smiling  and  jubilant  expression  in  the 
house  of  death. 

Suddenly  a  voice  screamed  in  strident  tones: 

"Come  in,  don't  waste  time,  we  must  have 


2o8  MY  OWN  STORY 

breakfast.  I  'm  absolutely  perishing  with  hun- 
ger." The  voice  was  Mathilde's,  but  I  ignored 
her  request  and  insisted  on  first  going  to  offer 
my  condolences  to  Queen  Carola,  and  we  were 
conducted  to  the  late  King's  bedroom,  where 
his  widow  remained  with  her  beloved  dead. 

King  Albert  lay  on  the  bed,  beautiful  and 
calm,  and  his  hands  were  crossed  above  the  fine 
linen  sheet,  strewn  with  red  roses,  which  covered 
him.  Queen  Carola  knelt  on  a  prie-dieu  at  the 
foot  of  the  bed,  where  two  candles  were  burning, 
and  as  I  looked  at  the  silent  figures-  a  great  wave 
of  sadness  came  over  me,  and  my  heart  over- 
flowed with  pity  for  the  grief -stricken  moiimer. 
I  did  not  say  much  to  her,  for  I  could  see  she 
desired  to  be  left  alone,  so  I  just  kissed  her  in 
token  of  my  sympathy,  and  left  the  room  as 
quietly  as  I  had  entered  it. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  contrast  after  the  peaceful 
rose-scented  chamber  of  death  to  find  myself  at 
breakfast  with  the  King  and  his  excited  family. 
My  father-in-law  simply  revelled  in  his  new 
dignity,  and  kept  on  ringing  the  bell  furiously, 
solely  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  fawning 
flunkeys  address  him  as  "Your  Majesty";  it  was 
life  to  him,  and  he  seemed  to  me  positively 
indecent  in  his  imrestrained  joy. 


MY  OWN  STORY  209 

During  an  interval  of  taking  coffee  he  turned 
to  us  and  said  coarsely:  "Well,  goodness  knows, 
I  've  waited  long  enough  to  become  King,  in  fact 
I  was  tired  of  waiting.  I  would  have  made  you 
Regent,  Frederick- August,  but  you  are  a  useless 
creature,  and  as  for  you,  Louisa,  you  may  as 
well  understand  that  you  have  all  your  work  cut 
out  before  you  can  become  a  Queen." 

"Yes,"  chimed  in  Mathilde,  "Louisa  is  indeed 
far  too  democratic;  she  takes  a  ridiculous 
interest  in  the  people,  and  never  remembers  the 
duties  of  her  station." 

I  did  not  answer,  and  she  continued:  "Now 
we  must  clearly  understand  our  respective  posi- 
tions. I,  as  the  King's  eldest  daughter,  shall 
naturally  take  precedence  of  you,  Louisa." 

"Certainly  not,''  said  my  husband  angrily. 
"Louisa  is  Crown  Princess,  and  she  will  there- 
fore precede  you." 

I  was  heartily  sick  of  the  discussion;  so  I 
said  carelessly,  "Have  it  your  own  way.  Cela 
m  'est  bien  egal."  The  whole  proceedings 
were  disgusting  to  any  one  with  a  grain  of 
sentiment  or  self-respect.  Here  was  the  Royal 
Family  quarrelling  and  disputing  over  pre- 
cedence  and   money   matters   before   the   late 

King  had  been  dead  twelve  hours.     Even  his 
14 


210  MY  OWN  STORY 

old  servants  seemed  to  have  forgotten  him, 
and  redoubled  their  efforts  to  please  the  new 
Sovereign!  It  was,  indeed,  a  case  of,  "Le  Roi 
est  mort.    Vive  le  Roi!" 

As  soon  as  this  excessively  unpleasant  meal 
was  over,  Frederick-August  and  I  were  escorted 
to  our  apartments  by  one  of  the  Court  officials, 
who  turned  and  said  to  me  on  the  way,  with 
great  meaning,  "Imperial  Highness,  you  are 
at  last  our  Crown  Princess,  and  I  hope,  as  all 
Saxony  hopes,  that  you  v/ill  soon  become  our 
Queen!" 

The  funeral  ceremonies  were  magnificent. 
The  King's  body  was  taken  to  Dresden  for 
interment,  and  the  coffin  placed  in  a  railway 
carriage  completely  covered  inside  and  outside 
with  ermine,  and  full  of  exotic  plants  and  palms. 
The  train  went  at  a  walking  pace  to  enable  the 
people  to  see  the  last  of  their  King,  and  we  all 
returned  to  Dresden  together. 

It  was  very  hot  weather,  and  Mathilde 
quenched  her  thirst  at  intervals  with  copious 
draughts  of  lager  beer.  I  went  to  He  down, 
as  I  was  overtired  and  overwrought.  The 
train  stopped  at  Bautzen,  where  my  father-in- 
law  alighted  and  received  a  deputation  of  the 
mimicipal    authorities.      He    was    exceedingly 


MY  OWN  STORY  211 

tactless,  and  made  so  many  impatient  remarks 
about  the  length  of  the  proceedings  that  his 
new  subjects  nudged  each  other  and  looked 
askance  when  they  heard  him  say  that  he 
did  n't  care  two  straws  about  the  dull  deputa- 
tion, and  he  grumbled  and  growled  unceasingly 
until  we  reached  Dresden. 

It  was  my  duty  to  meet  the  German  Emperor 
and  the  Empress,  who  came  to  Dresden  to 
attend  King  Albert's  obsequies,  and  I  drove  to 
the  station  with  my  father-in-law.  It  was  the 
first  time  we  had  appeared  in  public  together 
as  King  and  Crown  Princess,  and  although  the 
crowd  was  very  large,  it  was  not  enthusiastic 
at  the  sight  of  the  King;  a  woman,  however, 
recognised  me  under  my  heavy  crepe  veil,  and 
called  out:  "Give  our  Louisa  a  cheer — we  all 
love  her,"  and  then  cheering  broke  out  on 
all  sides,  which  made  the  King  so  furious 
that  he  had  hardly  time  to  recover  his  equili- 
brium before  the  special  train  from  Berlin 
arrived. 

The  Emperor  greeted  me  most  effusively,  and 
whispered : 

"Well,  that's  all  right;  now  you  are  a  step 
nearer  to  becoming  my  political  friend." 

I  drove  back  to  the  castle  with  the  Empress, 


212  MY  OWN  STORY 

and  the  people  cheered  more  freely  now  that  the 
Imperial  couple  were  in  evidence. 

After  the  lying-in-State,  King  Albert  was 
buried  in  the  royal  vault  of  the  chapel.  The 
coffin  slowly  disappeared  from  sight  of  the 
mourners,  on  a  lift,  somewhat  similar  to  that 
used  at  St.  George  's  Chapel,  Windsor,  and  the 
body  of  the  King  was  afterwards  placed  with 
those  of  his  ancestors. 

When  a  member  of  the  Saxon  Royal  Family 
dies,  the  body  is  opened,  and  the  heart  is  enclosed 
in  a  casket  and  put  on  a  white  satin  covered 
cushion  on  one  side  of  the  coffin;  les  entrailles, 
in  a  white  satin  covered  jar,  are  on  the  other 
side,  and  when  the  coffin  is  finally  deposited  in 
the  vault,  these  jars  stand  on  a  little  etagere 
beside  it.  It  is  a  barbarous  custom,  which,  of 
course,  annuls  all  risk  of  premature  burial,  but 
then  who  would  ever,  I  wonder,  willingly  return 
to  life  in  the  same  capacity  after  having  once 
been  a  King  or  Queen? 

King  Albert  loved  water-lilies,  those  cold 
flowers  which  never  respond  to  the  sun  's  rays, 
and  only  display  their  beauty  under  the  pallid 
moon.  I  therefore  ordered  a  wreath  entirely 
composed  of  water-lilies,  which  rested  on  a  bed 
of  palms.     A  white  moire  ribbon,  edged  with 


MY  OWN  STORY  213 

golden  fringe,  bore  our  names,  and  the  pet 
names  of  his  great-nephews  and  nieces,  our 
children— "lury"  (George),  "Tia"  (Frederick- 
Christian),  ''Emi"  (Emest-Heinrich),  "Ethe" 
(Margaret),  and  "RiaU"  (Maria- Alix),  in  gold 
letters. 

Shortly  after  the  King's  death,  I  had  a  very 
uncanny  experience  at  the  chapel  of  the  palace 
in  the  Zinzendorf  Strasse. 

My  father-in-law  had  once  told  me  in  a  burst 
of  confidence  that  on  several  occasions  a  spectral 
black  cat  had  been  seen  on  the  altar:  it  was 
supposed  to  presage  disaster,  and  he  said  he 
was  firmly  convinced  that  the  animal  was  the 
devil  or  one  of  his  familiars.  I  laughed  at  the 
story,  and  advised  him  to  have  the  spirit  exor- 
cised with  bell,  book,  and  candle,  but  I  was 
destined,  nevertheless,  to  see  the  mysterious  cat 
myself. 

In  the  month  of  November,  1902,  I  attended 
Mass  with  my  father-in-law,  and  suddenly  my 
gaze  was  arrested  by  the  sight  of  a  huge  black 
cat  seated  between  the  candles  on  the  High 
Altar.  I  wondered  whether  any  one  besides 
myself  saw  it,  but  one  glance  at  the  scared  faces 
around  me  left  no  room  for  doubt.  The  instant 
that   Mass   was    over,    Mathilde  went   to    the 


214  MY  OWN  STORY 

Sacristy  and  ordered  the  attendant  to  turn  the 
black  cat  out  of  the  chapel,  but  this  was  impos- 
sible as  it  was  not  to  be  found.  The  windows 
and  doors  were  all  shut,  and  it  was  impossible 
to  guess  where  the  creature  had  disappeared  to. 
A  thorough  search  was  instigated  without  success 
and  the  mystery  remained  unsolved.  My  father- 
in-law  maintained  a  gloomy  silence  throughout, 
and  told  every  one  that  the  occurrence  must  on 
no  account  be  mentioned  outside  the  palace.  It 
was  certainly  odd,  to  say  the  least,  and  whether 
the  black  visitor  was  cat  or  devil,  I  saw  it 
plainly,  and  can  vouch  for  the  truth  of  the  story. 
Those  early  days  of  my  poignant  sufferings 
made  me  somewhat  superstitious.  I  wondered 
whether  the  spectral  cat  foreshadowed  any  mis- 
fortunes for  me,  and  I  often  used  to  think  of  the 
strange  prophecy  w^hich  heralded  my  appearance 
into  this  very  odd  world.  The  sage-femme  who 
attended  at  my  birth  had  the  reputation  of  being 
a  clairvoyant e,  and  when  she  took  me  in  her 
arms  she  said,  looking  at  me  with  curious  intent- 
ness,  "This  child  is  destined  to  wear  a  crown,  but 
her  future  will  be  an  unhappy  one,  and  sorrows 
innimierable  will  be  her  portion." 


CHAPTER  XIII 


Taccuse 


215 


CHAPTER  XIII 


T  ACCUSE  Baron  George  von  Metzsch,  now 
Controller  of  the  Royal  Household,  of  being 
the  active  instigator  of  the  intrigues  which  led 
to  my  leaving  Dresden  and  to  my  ultimate 
expulsion  from  Saxony. 

My  arch-enemy  possesses  the  intellectual  at- 
tainments which  I  have  always  admired.  He 
is  a  good-looking,  elegant  man,  with  captivating 
manners,  an  iron  will,  and  a  ruthless  tenacity  of 
purpose  that  brooks  no  obstacles,  but  he  does 
not  know  the  meaning  of  chivalry  or  gratitude 
where  his  personal  interests  are  involved.  He 
employs  creatures  beneath  contempt  to  spy  and 
lie  for  him;  and,  curiously  enough,  the  serpents 
who  do  his  bidding  never  turn  upon  their  master. 

I  still  retain  a  reluctant  admiration  for  the 
qualities  that  make  for  greatness  in  this  unscru- 
pulous man,  although  I  doubt  if  he  has  an  enemy 
who  hates  him  more  bitterly  than  I  do.  Through 
him  I  have  been  vilified  in  the  eyes  of  my  hus- 
band, my  family,  and  my  people;  but,  although 

217 


2i8  MY  OWN  STORY 

he  has  tried  to  suppress  me,  phoenix-like  I  rise 
from  the  ashes  of  injustice,  and  vindicate  myself; 
and  I  believe  that  George  von  Metzsch  now 
considers  me  an  opponent  worthy  of  his  steel. 

When  I  arrived  in  Saxony,  fresh  from  the 
intellectual  pleasures  that  papa's  companion- 
ship always  afforded  me,  I  was  drawn  to  Von 
Metzsch,  as  he  appeared  to  be  the  only  witty  and 
agreeable  man  in  the  Court  circle.  He  seemed 
at  that  time  very  desirous  of  possessing  my 
friendship,  and  I  remember  his  saying:  "We 
must  try  to  be  friends.  Imperial  Highness,  for 
later  on  we  can  act  together."  We  were  always 
on  the  best  of  terms  imtil  1897,  when  our  friend- 
ship suddenly  and  definitely  came  to  an  end. 

In  the  summer  of  that  year,  my  husband  and 
I  went  to  stay  for  a  few  weeks  in  Nordemey. 
Von  Metzsch  was  there,  and  one  evening  he 
asked  us  to  sup  with  him:  we  were  pleased  to 
accept  his  invitation,  and  met  him  at  the  second- 
rate  restaurant  he  had  named. 

When  we  entered,  an  obsequious  waiter  con- 
ducted us  to  the  table  reserved  for  Herr  von 
Metzsch,  who  came  forward,  greeted  me  with 
much  empressement,  and  escorted  me  to  my 
seat.  I  looked  at  the  table  in  silent  amazement : 
there  was  no   tablecloth,  no   flowers,  but  only 


'-^^' 


Photo  by  Otto  Mayer,  Dresden. 


BARON    GEORGE    VON     METZSCH,    THE    MAN    WHO    SAID    OF    ME,    "l    WILL    RUIN 
THIS    WOMAN,    BUT    I    WILL    RUIN    HER    SLOWLY" 


219 


MY  OWN  STORY  221 

quite  ordinary  appointments,  and  in  front  of 
me  was  a  dish  covered  with  a  plate.  As  I 
grasped  all  these  details,  I  flushed  with  anger, 
for,  although  I  hope  I  have  no  false  pride,  I 
resented  this  treatment  of  myself  and  Frederick- 
August  as  the  guests  of  a  subject. 

I  turned  to  our  host,  who  was  watching  me 
narrowly,  although  his  face  wore  an  inscrutable 
expression. 

"Well,  Baron,"  I  asked,  "what  kind  of  supper 
have  you  had  prepared  for  me?" 

"Ah,"  he  replied,  "Imperial  Highness,  know- 
ing as  I  do  the  simple  tastes  of  the  Habsburgs, 
I  have  set  some  cold  ham  before  you." 

I  uncovered  the  dish,  and  sure  enough  I  saw 
two  small  slices  of  ham.  The  whole  occurrence 
was  so  bewildering  that  I  could  find  no  words  to 
express  my  disgust  and  mortification,  but  I  said 
very  quietly,  "I  shall  remember  this,  and  I 
shall  have  my  revenge." 

Von  Metzsch  started  in  mock  alarm. 

"You  are  surely  not  offended?"  he  queried. 

"Oh  no,"  said  I,  and  I  commenced  my  supper 
as  though  nothing  untoward  had  happened. 

I  pondered  over  this  extraordinary  behaviour, 
and  after  a  while  I  invited  Von  Metzsch  and  his 
wife  to  supper  at  the  best  restaurant  in  Nor- 


C22  MY  OWN  STORY 

demey.  I  ordered  a  private  room,  and  gave  the 
proprietor  carte  blanche  for  flovv^ers,  food,  and 
wines.  The  result  of  my  preparations  absolutely 
staggered  Von  Metzsch,  who  sat  next  me  at 
supper;  he  kept  looking  round  the  room,  men- 
tally appraising  the  cost  of  the  flowers  and  the 
choice  dishes  and  wine,  and  at  last  he  said  to 
me: 

"Why  have  you  gone  to  such  lavish  ex- 
penditure for  my  entertainment,  Imperial 
Highness?" 

I  looked  at  him  steadily  and  then  said : 

"This,  Excellency,  is  my  revenge  for  the  two 
slices  of  ham  you  gave  me  the  other  night ;  later 
on,  /  shall  sit  as  a  Queen  at  the  political  supper 
table,  where  there  will  be  numerous  plats  for  my 
guests,  and  then,  Baron,  you  will  receive  only 
two  small  slices  of  political  influence." 

Every  one  present  heard  my  words,  which  I 
could  see  produced  a  really  startling  effect.  Von 
Metzsch  never  forgot  them,  and  from  that 
moment  he  became  my  deadly  enemy.  I  know 
for  a  fact  that  he  said,  "I  mean  to  ruin  this 
woman,  but  I  will  ruin  her  slowly,"  and  he  kept 
his  v/ord. 

Von  Metzsch  was  hand  and  glove  with  King 
Albert   and   my   father-in-law,   who   took  him 


MY  OWN  STORY  223 

unreservedly  into  their  confidence,  and  never  did 
anything  without  consulting  him.  Mathilde, 
too,  was  his  ally,  and  she  reported  to  him  all  my 
doings,  and  enlarged  and  commented  on  my 
harmless  eccentricities,  unmindful  of  the  fact 
that  her  own  peculiarities  made  her  the  butt 
of  the  Socialist  newspapers,  and  that  she  was 
regarded  as  a  huge  joke  all  over  Saxony. 

George  von  Metzsch  laid  his  plans  with  dia- 
bolical cunning;  his  spies  were  everywhere,  and 
he  was  so  skilful  that  I  was  at  that  time  never 
able  positively  to  identify  him  as  the  instigator 
of  the  infernal  machinery  which  was  slowly,  but 
surely,  set  in  motion  to  undermine  my  reputation 
and  my  happiness. 

My  husband  was  the  only  useless  item  in 
Von  Metzsch 's  schemes,  for  his  fine  character 
and  purity  of  mind  made  him  incapable  of 
believing  ill  of  any  one,  and  he  steadfastly  dis- 
countenanced malicious  gossip.  I  was  sur- 
rounded by  enemies,  and  were  it  not  that  my 
father-in-law  is  dead,  and  unable  to  answer 
my  accusations,  I  would  not  hesitate  to  pro- 
duce the  proofs  that  I  possess  of  his  relentless, 
vindictive  methods  towards  me. 

The  Church  regarded  me  with  secret  dislike, 
for  the  priests  disapproved  of  my  free-thinking 


224  ^^y  OWN  STORY 

ideas,  and  the  Modernisme  so  hated  by  the 
Vatican,  that  I  always  displayed.  The  Court 
entourage  detested  me  because  they  knew  that 
I  wished  to  upset  the  old  order  of  things,  and 
that  if  ever  I  became  Queen  I  should  inspire 
sweeping  reforms,  and  make  away  with  the  petty 
injustice  and  corruption  which  pervaded  every- 
thing. My  enemies,  too,  were  fully  aware  that 
I  wielded  great  influence  over  my  husband,  and 
they  feared  my  friendship  with  the  Emperor 
WilHam,  whom  they  disliked  and  dreaded  as 
my  possible  ally. 

I  took  too  much  interest  in  the  people  to  please 
the  Court,  and  I  did  not  conceal  my  opinion 
that  a  Protestant  country  like  Saxony  ought  to 
have  a  Protestant  King,  and  should  not  be  ruled 
by  a  Roman  Catholic. 

I  wished  to  make  my  Court  an  intellectual 
and  artistic  centre,  and  this  again  was  a  subject 
of  bitter  contention.  I  alternated  between 
indignant  revolt  and  acute  depression,  for  I 
realised  that  I  was  under  constant  surveillance, 
and  I  was  treated  like  a  little  girl  who  requires 
very  strict  governesses.  Every  small  action  of 
impulse  was  magnified  into  almost  criminal 
eccentricity,  my  harmless  friendships  were  pre- 
sented in  the  light  of  vulgar  flirtations,  and  I 


MY  CWN  STORY  225 

could  never,  show  any  interest  in  any  one  with- 
out having  some  disgraceful  ulterior  motive 
attributed  to  me. 

When  I  was  not  the  object  of  abuse,  my  own 
family  were  subjected  to  it,  and  we  were  one 
and  all  credited  with  every  Habsburg  peccadillo 
and  peculiarity.  My  superior  rank  was  another 
cause  of  offence,  and  at  last  I  grew  tired  of  strug- 
gling against  such  overwhelming  odds.  I  dis- 
dained to  complain,  because  I  knew  that  I  was 
represented  as  a  capricious,  hysterical  woman 
who  required  the  firm  hand  of  subjection  which 
is  usually  supposed  to  be  so  efficacious,  but,  in 
the  majority  of  cases,  has  only  the  ultimate 
effect  of  driving  its  victims  to  desperation. 

Oh,  how  I  suffered  in  those  days!     I  have 

often  tried  to  show  some  nobility  of  character, 

and  forgive  those  who  injtu-ed  me  so  deeply,  but 

I  cannot.    The  iron  has  entered  far  too  deeply 

into  my  soul;  forgiveness  may  come  later,  but 

at  present  I  have  banished  it  from  my  heart. 

I  was  like  some  wild  bird  that  has  fallen  into 

the  snare  of  the  fowler  and  is  caged  for  evermore. 

Often  I  stood  at  my  window  at  eventide,  and 

watched  the  happy  hurrying  people  going  on 

their  homeward  way,   and   I   envied  them  so 

much.    They,  at  any  rate,  could  live  as  human 
15 


326  MY  OWN  STORY 

beings — to  me  it  seemed  forbidden  to  do  any- 
thing but  suffer. 

Those  people  are  ingenuous  who  envy  crowned 
heads,  for  there  are  very  few  of  them  who  would 
not  like  to  be  in  some  other  sphere.  The  dis- 
play of  regal  state  is  always  outwardly  attrac- 
tive, the  ?nise  en  scene  is  imposing  and  arresting, 
but  royal  personages  are,  as  a  rule,  very  or- 
dinary people  after  all.  Our  education  unfits 
us  for  any  other  position  in  life;  we  can  be 
generous  because  we  have  always  money  at 
our  disposal  for  charity;  we  can  make  our- 
selves agreeable  because  it  is  part  of  our 
training;  but  when  once  we  become  creatures 
of  flesh  and  blood  we  lose  part  of  our  halo.  I 
often  think  that  it  is  the  pomp  and  circiim- 
stance  surrounding  Royalty  which  appeal  most 
strongly  to  the  populace,  and  I  am  quite  sure 
that  the  people  of  Dresden  would  have  appre- 
ciated a  good  circus  procession  infinitely  better 
than  a  coronation. 

The  unceasing  persecution  went  on  unchecked ; 
there  was  not  a  soul  I  could  trust,  and  nobody 
dared  tell  (so  great  was  the  power  of  Von 
Metzsch)  what  the  undercurrent  of  intrigue 
against  me  really  meant.  I  felt  like  a  prisoner 
condemned  to  death,  who  is  not  allowed  to  know 


MY  OWN  STORY  227 

when  the  sentence  will  be  carried  out;  it  would 
have  been  unnerving  even  to  the  strongest  per- 
son, but  to  me,  highly  strung  and  impression- 
able, as  I  am,  it  was  positive  torture.  I  was 
a  young  woman  with  all  the  feelings  of  youth, 
and  my  sense  rebelled  against  the  unmerited 
indignities  to  which  I  was  subjected. 

Another  dangerous  spy  existed  in  my  own 
household,  but  I  shall  not  sully  these  pages  by 
m.entioning  his  name,  for  he  is  only  worthy  to 
be  termed  a  noxious  reptile.  He  belongs  to  a 
class  only  to  be  met  with  in  palaces — a  class  re- 
sponsible for  many  unfathomed  tragedies  which 
are  never  allowed  to  see  the  light.  To  me,  the 
hold  that  these  creatures  obtain  is  incompre- 
hensible; they  usually  commence  their  career 
by  being  admitted  into  a  curious  kind  of  semi- 
familiarity  with  royalties  when  they  are  quite 
young,  and  they  grow  up  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  labyrinth  of  intrigue  which  always 
exists  in  palace  life.  They  end  by  making  them.- 
selves  indispensable;  they  force  confidences, 
and  thus  obtain  a  hold  over  their  unfortunate 
masters  and  mistresses  who  are  powerless  from 
the  moment  they  betray  themselves. 

These  people  are  looked  upon  as  the  secret 
keys  which  unlock  the  private  lives  of  kings  and 


228  MY  OWN  STORY 

queens;  they  are  corrupt  in  every  way,  and  their 
indolent  Hves  and  "high  living"  render  them 
gross  and  material.  Gratitude  and  loyalty  are 
unknown  when  once  they  are  balked  in  their 
desires  and  intrigues,  and  woe  betide  those 
luckless  enough  to  cross  them. 

I  regarded  the  man  I  have  mentioned  with  a 
pectiliar  kind  of  nervous  antipathy;  he  was  one 
of  my  husband's  personal  attendants,  and  was 
allowed  unwarrantable  liberties  of  speech  and 
action.  He  once  dared  to  address  me  in  a  detest- 
ably familiar  manner,  and  when  he  realised  how 
bitterly  I  resented  it,  he  watched  me  as  a  spy, 
and  I  felt  that  his  covert  looks  and  furtive 
glances  w^ere  always  upon  me.  His  ''atmos- 
phere" was  of  the  most  evil  kind,  and  whenever 
he  left  my  presence,  I  felt  a  strong  impulse  to 
throw  open  all  the  windows,  and  let  in  the  fresh 
air  to  purify  the  room.  I  have  never  experienced 
such  a  deadly  antipathy  for  any  one  but  this 
spy  of  Von  Metzsch,  and  I  often  thought  it  a 
pity  that  the  Court  of  Saxony,  always  so 
mediaeval  in  its  ways,  did  not  adopt  some 
sharp,  short  mediaeval  m.ethod  of  silencing  such 
traitors. 

It  may  be  that  a  man  can  persecute  a  woman 
with  relentless  hatred  and  remain  unpunished, 


MY  OWN  STORY  229 

but  I  am  old-fashioned  enough  in  my  beliefs 
to  think  that  George  von  Metzsch  will  one  day- 
receive  his  just  sentence  at  that  tribunal  from 
which  there  will  be  no  appeal. 


CHAPTER  XrV 


/  leave  Dresden 


33  z 


CHAPTER  XIV 


jy  A  Y  position  became  almost  unendurable  after 
the  death  of  King  Albert  who  had  always 
shown  me  considerable  kindness,  and  the  year 
1902  was  a  most  unhappy  one  for  me.  My 
father-in-law  felt  his  health  declining,  and  he 
apparently  determined  to  get  rid  of  me  by  fair 
means  or  foul  before  he  died.  He  was  terribly 
afraid  lest  I  should  become  Queen  of  Saxony, 
and  as  his  health  became  worse,  he  grew  more 
and  more  austere  and  fanatical. 

I  was  practically  friendless,  and  how  I  longed 
for  some  one  in  whom  I  could  confide!  My 
husband  was  invariably  kind,  but  when  I  en- 
deavoured to  tell  him  my  troubles,  and  explain 
how  things  really  were,  he  could  not,  or  would 
not,  realise  that  such  wickedness  existed. 

To  all  my  entreaties  that  he  would  test  the 

truth   of   my   statements,    he    only   answered, 

"But — why — what  reason  can  there  be  for  such 

a   state   of   things?      I   don't   notice  anything 

different;  why  do  you  worry?" 

233 


234  ^^y  OWN  STORY 

It  was  like  beating  my  head  against  a  wall,  so 
little  did  I  impress  Frederick- August,  and  at  last 
I  gave  it  up  in  despair. 

I  always  knew  that  I  was  watched,  even  in  my 
own  rooms,  and  I  felt  on  the  verge  of  a  crise  des 
nerfs.  ]My  maid  told  me  that  she  was  certain 
I  was  being  spied  upon  at  night,  and  I  deter- 
mined to  find  this  out  for  myself. 

One  night  I  got  up,  and  crept  silently  through 
the  rooms  in  the  dark;  the  shutters  were  not 
closed,  and  the  street  lamps  gave  enough  light 
for  me  to  distinguish  the  various  objects  in  the 
room.  As  I  entered,  I  saw  the  heavy  curtains 
move  slightly,  but  I  pretended  not  to  notice  it, 
and  after  a  few  moments  I  returned  to  my  bed- 
room and  then  went  to  rouse  my  maid.  We 
made  our  way  to  the  room  occupied  by  the  spy 
whom  I  have  previously  mentioned.  My  maid 
called  him  by  name,  but  there  was  no  answer. 
When  she  opened  the  door  we  saw  that  his  bed 
was  empty,  and  what  had  hitherto  been  a 
suspicion,  now  became  a  reality. 

Another  time,  when  I  was  dressing  for  a  Court 
ball,  my  toilet- table  was  in  such  a  position  that 
from  where  I  was  sitting  I  could  see  the  door  of 
my  dressing-room  reflected  in  the  mirror.  While 
the  maid  was  adjusting  my  coronet,  I  noticed  the 


MY  OWN  STORY  235 

velvet  portiere  lifted  by  a  cautious  hand,  and  I 
managed  to  warn  her  by  a  glance  that  something 
was  happening.  We  continued  talking,  but,  at  a 
sign  from  me,  she  darted  across  the  room  and 
confronted  a  footman  who  was  hidden  behind 
the  portiere. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?''  she  inqtiired,  but 
the  man  made  some  futile  excuse,  and  beat  a 
rapid  retreat.  After  these  events  I  felt  much 
relieved  to  think  that  as  my  husband  and  I 
occupied  the  same  bedroom,  there  could  be  at 
least  no  espionage  there. 

It  was  with  mixed  feelings  of  joy  and  appre- 
hension that  I  found  I  had  again  hopes  of  be- 
coming a  mother.  Under  happier  circumstances  I 
should  have  welcomed  another  sweet  baby,  but 
I  felt  such  a  strong  presentiment  of  trouble 
that  I  dreaded  the  effect  my  nervous  condition 
might  have  on  the  unborn  child.  Those  lonely 
days  were  only  lightened  by  the  society  of  my 
sons,  who  were  now  old  enough  to  have  a  tutor, 
and  I  often  went  to  see  how  their  studies  were 
progressing,  and  chatted  with  their  instructor, 
M.  Giron,  who  was  an  intelligent  and  charm- 
ing man. 

I  wrote  long  letters  to  my  brother,  the  Arch- 
duke Leopold,  telling  him  how  much  I  had  to 


236  MY  OWN  STORY 

endure,  and  his  replies  always  consoled  and  sup- 
ported me.  I  had  by  this  time  fully  made  up 
my  mind  to  leave  Saxony,  and  I  proposed  to 
Leopold  that  we  should  make  our  home  together 
in  Switzerland  until  King  George  died,  when  I 
could  return  as  Queen. 

My  lady  of  the  bedchamber,  Frau  von  Fritsch, 
was  one  of  my  most  imrelenting  enemies.  This 
lady  owed  her  position  in  my  household  to  her 
friendship  with  my  father-in-law  in  the  days  of 
his  youth  when  he  was  a  disciple  of  Plato,  whose 
doctrines  tempered  his  inclinations  and  enabled 
him  to  be  purely  dispassionate  in  his  dealings 
with  the  opposite  sex. 

Frau  von  Fritsch  appreciated  King  George's 
friendship  to  such  a  degree  that  she  considered 
herself  one  of  the  Royal  Family.  She  always 
dressed  exactly  as  I  did,  and  carried  her  imita- 
tion in  this  direction  to  a  ridiculous  extent.  I 
remember  that  one  day  when  "Erni"  met  her 
on  the  staircase  he  really  thought  he  saw  his 
mamma,  until  closer  inspection  showed  him 
his  mistake. 

The  child  was  much  puzzled,  and  said  gravely, 
"You  look  like  a  very  old  picture  of  mamma," 
and  Frau  von  Fritsch  was  so  dense  that  she  did 
not  see  that  Emi  was  only  referring  to  her  as 


MY  OWN  STORY  237 

a  work  of  art,  and  she  repeated  this  joke  against 
herself  to  every  one  she  met. 

She  was  intensely  affected,  but  her  affecta- 
tion and  deference  scarcely  disguised  her  veiled 
insolence,  and  she  was  false  to  the  heart's  core. 
She  discussed  me  with  my  father-in-law,  and 
never  to  my  advantage,  for  she  was  an  utterly 
unscrupulous  liar. 

Matters  came  to  a  crisis  in  November,  1902. 
One  morning  Frau  von  Fritsch  came  into  my 
sitting-room,  and  to  my  intense  amazement  she 
dared  to  comment  on  my  friendly  interest  in  my 
sons'  tutor.  I  hope  I  am  always  open  to  reason- 
able advice,  but  that  such  a  woman  should  pre- 
sume on  her  friendship  with  my  father-in-law 
to  criticise  me  was  past  endurance,  and  I  insisted 
that  she  should  repeat  her  accusation  of  my 
having  flirted  with  M.  Giron  to  my  husband. 

Frau  von  Fritsch  cried  and  sobbed,  and 
begged  me  not  to  confront  her  with  Frederick- 
August.  She  then  went  off  to  my  father-in-law, 
and  I  sought  my  husband,  and  in  a  paroxysm 
of  despairing  tears  begged  him  to  take  me 
away  from  Saxony.  He  was  then  suffering  from 
the  effects  of  a  broken  leg,  and  my  state  of  mind 
came  upon  him  with  something  of  a  shock. 

"Let  us  go  to  Egypt,"  I  urged.     "If  I  am 


23S  MY  OWN  STORY 

safe  with  you  I  shall  be  at  rest.  You  alone  can 
save  me.  I  beg,  I  entreat  you  to  protect  me 
from  those  who  are  trying  to  ruin  me."  But 
all  in  vain.  Aly  husband  merely  said  that  I  was 
over-imaginative  and  hysterical  as  a  result  of 
my  condition,  and  that  it  was  quite  impossible 
for  him  to  leave  Dresden  on  account  of  his 
father's  health.  If  I  really  wished  it,  we  could 
travel  later. 

"Later,"  I  sobbed,  "may  be  too  late,  Fred- 
erick." 

Oh,  if  my  husband  had  only  been  less  of  a 
good  man!  In  his  eyes  a  woman  and  a  mother 
was  so  sacred  that  he  could  not  conceive  any 
one  calumniating  her,  and  the  traditions  of  his 
house  made  him  think  it  impossible  that  people 
would  ever  dare  to  hiM  evil  of  the  Crown  Princess 
of  Saxony. 

I  could  have  told  him  that  evil  was  actually 
made  out  of  my  charities  and  my  visits  to  the 
hospitals.  The  Children's  Hospital  at  Dresden 
was  imder  my  patronage,  and  I  used  often  to  go 
there  and  assist  in  the  niursing,  and  occasionally 
help  with  the  "dressings."  One  evening  a 
poor  girl  would  not  have  her  bandages  adjusted 
unless  I  was  there,  and  so,  in  despair,  the  house- 
surgeon  telephoned  to  me,  and  begged  me  to 


MY  OWN  STORY  239 

humour  the  sufferer,  who  was  dangerously  ill. 
We  were  all  at  tea  when  the  message  arrived, 
and  I  at  once  wished  to  go,  but  my  father-in-law 
absolutely  forbade  it,  and  said  in  a  contemp- 
tuous, jeering  way,  "Let  the  rat  die." 

I  resented  this  cruelty  to  a  dying  girl  even 
more  than  anything  he  had  ever  done  to  me, 
because  I  felt  that  I  was  only  doing  my  duty  in 
going  to  any  of  my  people  who  needed  me,  or 
my  help,  in  sickness  or  trouble.  I  hope  the  poor 
child  understood  before  she  died  how  much  I 
wanted  to  be  with  her,  and  how  often  she  was 
in  my  thoughts  that  evening. 

After  her  accusation,  Frau  von  Fritsch  sent 
privately  for  M.  Giron  and  tried  to  entrap  him 
into  an  admission  of  affection  for  me.  He  was 
furious  and  demanded  to  face  his  calumniators. 
Nothing  would  induce  him  to  remain  at  the 
Court,  and  he  told  my  husband  that  urgent 
family  business  recalled  him  to  Brussels. 

Frau  von  Fritsch  at  once  went  to  my  father- 
in-law,  and  begged  him  to  prevent  M.  Giron 
leaving  Dresden,  for  no  other  reason,  I  think, 
than  that  his  departure  would  effectually  crush 
all  hopes  of  my  downfall.  Naturally  the  King 
was  disturbed  at  the  turn  of  events,  and  he 
asked  me  to  try  and  induce  the  tutor  to  recon- 


240  MY  OWN  STORY 

sider  his  decision;  but  i^\I.  Giron  was  obdurate, 
and  left  Dresden  early  in  November,  1902. 

What  penances  my  father-in-law  performed 
to  quiet  his  uneasy  conscience  I  know  not,  but 
doubtless  the  souls  in  Purgatory  had  many  extra 
Masses  said  for  them,  and  as  the  Court  priests 
pocketed  five  marks  for  each  Mass  I  imagine 
they  were  not  deeply  disturbed  at  our  family 
differences. 

When  the  King  fully  realised  that  for  the 
time  being  his  plans  had  miscarried,  he  sent  for 
me,  and  in  tones  of  cold  hatred  disclosed  the 
arrangements  he  contemplated  making  on  my 
behalf,  and  I  think  at  this  interview  religion 
must  have  fled  weeping  from  his  presence 

We  faced  each  other,  outwardly  cakn,  and  he 
said,  coming  straight  to  the  point,  "It  has 
become  annoying  and  wearisome  for  me  to 
possess  you  as  a  daughter-in-law,  Louisa.  The 
views  you  entertain,  and  the  contempt  you  dis- 
play for  the  traditions  of  our  Court  convince  me 
that  you  are  not  in  the  way  of  fulfilling  my  ideal 
of  what  a  Queen  of  Saxony  should  be.  I  dislike 
you  personally,  I  have  always  done  so,  and  .  .  . 
therefore  I  intend  to  have  you  removed.  I  only 
regret  that  our  ridiculous  modem  ideas  do  not 
permit  me  to  imprison  you  for  life,  or  better 


MY  OWN  STORY  243 

Still,"  he  continued,  "to  cause  you  to  disappear 
so  completely  that  your  fate  would  never  be 
known.  You  have  now  fulfilled  your  destiny, 
which  was  to  provide  princes  to  continue  our 
line,  and  so  I  have  no  further  use  for  you.  But, 
Louisa,  I  now  tell  you  what  I  have  always 
thought,  and  that  is  that  you  are  mad — and 
that  the  Bourbon-Habsburg  eccentricities  have 
so  developed  in  you  that  they  have  become  the 
cause  of  your  state  of  mind. 

"So,  my  poor  Louisa,  as  there  is  happily 
every  provision  made  nowadays  for  the  insane, 
I  shall  personally  interest  myself  in  seeing  that 
you  are  guarded  from  the  consequences  of  your 
actions." 

He  left  me  without  another  word,  and  Frau 
von  Fritsch,  who  had  doubtless  been  an  inter- 
ested listener  to  the  conversation,  came  into  the 
boudoir  in  a  state  of  excitement,  and  at  once 
began  to  glorify  my  father-in-law. 

"He  is  so  just,  so  good,  and  so  considerate 
for  your  welfare,"  she  said,  "he  wishes  to  keep 
your  husband  in  ignorance  of  many  sad  truths 
concerning  you."  Then  in  motherly  tones  she 
continued:  "My  sweet  Princess,  I  feel  so  deeply 
for  you.  Fancy,  if  your  hysterical  condition 
should  become  violent,  and  you  attacked  your 


244  ^^y  OWN  STORY 

little  ones,  how  terrible  that  would  be!  It  will 
be  better  for  you  not  to  see  the  children,  and 
from  this  time  forth  my  orders  are  never  to  leave 
you  alone  with  them." 

I  was  so  stunned  with  horror  and  fright  at 
being  told  I  was  insane,  that  at  first  I  could 
not  speak ;  but  at  last  I  collected  all  my  energies 
and  turned  on  my  enemy. 

"Be  silent,  woman! "  I  cried.  ** Don't  dare  to 
stay  in  my  presence.  Traitress  and  spy,  if  you 
have  discussed  me  with  truth,  there  is  nothing 
in  my  life  to  be  ashamed  of.  Go  to  the  King 
and  talk  about  Plato — you  and  he  will  find  it 
reminiscent — ^but  leave  me  this  instant,  or  I 
will  have  you  turned  out  of  my  boudoir." 

At  this  Frau  von  Fritsch  completely  lost  her 
self-control  and  hissed  at  me:  "Ah — you  talk 
bravely.  Imperial  Highness,  but  let  me  tell  you 
that  your  accouchement  will  take  place  in  the 
Asylum  of  Sonnenstein;  your  father-in-law  and 
I  have  arranged  all  the  details,  and  yotu*  rooms 
are  even  now  prepared  for  you." 

Left  alone,  I  tried  to  calm  myself  in  order  to 
look  at  my  desperate  situation  in  all  its  aspects, 
and  I  am  sure  that  few  human  beings  have  ever 
been  placed  in  such  a  terrible  predicament.  As 
I  had  anticipated,  M.  Giron's  sudden  departure 


MY  OWN  STORY  245 

had  forced  the  King's  hand;  it  had  evidently 
been  intended  all  along  to  brand  me  either  as  an 
iinf aithf 111  wife  or  as  a  lunatic ;  the  first  plan  had 
failed,  as  there  was  not  the  faintest  proof  that 
any  liaison  existed  between  M.  Giron  and  myself; 
so  the  other  expedient  was  resorted  to  by  my 
enemies. 

I  realised  with  impotent  despair  how  helpless 
I  should  be  when  once  I  was  placed  in  a  Maison 
de  Sante,  and  I  shudderingly  recalled  to  my  mind 
the  various  princesses  who  had  been  consigned 
to  what  I  considered  a  living  tomb.  The  one 
terror  of  my  existence  has  always  been  the  dread 
of  insanity,  and  the  horrors  of  confinement  in 
a  madhouse,  be  it  known  as  a  Home  of  Rest, 
a  Castle,  or  a  Private  Sanatorium.  Any  forced 
restraint  has  always  been  resented  by  the  Habs- 
burgs,  and  my  whole  spirit  revolted  against 
the  fate  in  store  for  me.  What  could  I  do? 
Various  ideas  formed  and  reformed,  and  even- 
tually crystallised  themselves  into  the  one  word 
— Escape.  I  knew  that  my  hours  of  personal 
liberty  were  mnnbered  at  Dresden,  and  that  any 
appeal  to  my  husband  would  be  worse  than  use- 
less. There  was  nothing  for  me  but  flight,  but 
even  as  I  thought  of  the  idea,  I  suffered  agonies 
at  the  prospect  of  leaving  my  children — those 


246  MY  OWN  STORY 

precious  beings  who  belonged  to  me.  I  pictured 
dear  George  and  Emi,  and  my  loving  Tia,  left 
without  "mamma,"  who  loved  them  so  tenderly, 
and  I  wept  over  my  little  girls,  who,  luckily, 
were  too  young  to  miss  me  for  long. 

I  have  been  described  as  a  frivolous  woman 
and  a  heartless  mother,  who  left  her  children  in  a 
most  cruel  manner;  but  as  I  am  now  giving  the 
whole  truth  to  the  world,  I  leave  the  world 
to  judge  who  was  the  more  cruel — a  hunted, 
persecuted  woman  who  fought  for  her  liberty, 
or  the  unscrupulous  enemies  who  drove  her 
from  husband,  home,  and  children?  I  knew 
that  the  children  would  be  well  cared  for,  and 
I  thought  that  arrangements  could  easily  be 
made,  after  an  interval,  which  would  enable  me 
to  see  them  at  Salzburg,  or  some  other  place 
within  easy  reach  of  Dresden. 

Thought  of  flight,  alone,  filled  me  with  anxiety. 
I  knew  little  or  nothing  of  the  outside  world,  and 
the  unknown  is  always  dreaded.  I  was  in  a 
delicate  state  of  health,  when  all  excitement  was 
undesirable,  and  my  physical  condition  made 
me  feel  both  bodily  and  mentally  ill.  When  I 
thought  of  this,  a  sudden  panic  seized  me.  My 
baby  must  never,  never  be  bom  in  a  mad- 
house; it  must  be  spared  at  all  costs  from  such 


MY  OWN  STORY  249 

dreadful  prenatal  influences,  and  I  think  this 
last  horror  finally  decided  me  not  to  lose  an- 
other moment  over  my  plans  for  safeguarding 
my  unborn  child  and  myself. 

I  behaved  that  evening  just  as  if  nothing 
unpleasant  had  happened,  and  I  said  casually 
that,  as  I  was  rather  run  down,  I  should  like 
to  spend  a  few  days  at  Salzburg.  To  my  surprise 
no  objection  was  raised,  so  I  at  once  wrote  to  my 
parents  saying  that  I  proposed  paying  them  a 
short  visit,  and  I  managed  to  send  Leopold  a 
long  confidential  account  of  all  that  had  tran- 
spired. I  told  him  that  I  relied  on  his  promise 
to  help  me,  should  papa  refuse  to  have  me  at 
Salzburg,  until  things  could  be  arranged;  and 
from  the  moment  I  knew  I  was  really  going 
home,  I  lived  in  a  kind  of  waking  dream.  I 
found  myself  taking  an  odd  interest  in  quite 
trivial  things  in  my  rooms.  "Look  well  at  us," 
the  pictures  seemed  to  say,  "because  you  may 
never  see  us  again."  The  famous  emeralds 
gleamed  with  unwonted  fire,  and  seemed  to 
whisper,  "We  shall  adorn  another  Princess  in 
years  to  come,  but  we  shall  remember  you." 
When  I  stole  into  the  bedrooms  to  look  at  my 
sleeping  children,  an  unseen  presence  seemed  to 
follow  me,  and  say,  "Cherish  the  memory  of 


250  MY  OWN  STORY 

these  little  ones,  unhappy  mother,  and  you  will 
have  the  consolation  of  being  told  in  days  to 
come  that  you  have  lived  in  their  hearts." 

That  night,  as  I  lay  awake,  torn  with  anguish, 
I  heard  my  husband's  peaceful  breathing,  and  I 
knew  that  he  slept  in  ignorance  of  what  the 
morrow  wotdd  bring.  I  was  often  tempted  to 
throw  myself  again  on  his  protection,  but  I  was 
too  much  in  dread  of  my  father-in-law  to  dare 
to  speak. 

When  I  drove  to  the  railway  station  on  the 
day  I  left  Dresden,  I  had  something  of  the 
feeling  of  an  emigrant  who  is  leaving  his  native 
land;  but  an  emigrant  is  not  always  obliged  to 
leave  his  nearest  and  dearest  behind.  As  I 
stepped  into  my  coupe,  and  the  train  steamed 
out  of  the  station,  I  realised  that  my  day  as 
Crown  Princess  of  Saxony  was  over. 


CHAPTER  XV 


My  arrival  at  Salzburg — A  fruitless  interview — My  brother 
protects  me — We  agree  to  fly  together — A  night  ad- 
venture— We  start  for  Switzerland. 


asi 


CHAPTER  XV 


T  ARRIVED  at  Salzburg  on  December  lo,  1902. 
I  had  passed  through  a  whirl  of  conflicting 
emotions  during  the  journey,  the  prevalent  one 
being  a  feeling  of  intense  relief  at  my  escape  from 
my  father-in-law.  The  danger  of  being  immured 
in  a  madhouse  seemed  now  averted,  but  I  was 
uncertain  as  to  the  attitude  my  parents  would 
adopt.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that,  on  the  various 
occasions  when  I  have  relied  on  other  people, 
they  have  not  only  failed  me,  but  have  frus- 
trated my  plans,  and  I  have  always  had  to  face 
the  great  crises  of  my  life  entirely  alone. 

I  entered  the  gloomy  Palace  at  Salzburg  with 
high  hopes,  for  I  felt  certain  that  papa  and 
mamma  would  pity  and  console  me  in  my 
troubles,  although  they  might  possibly  disap- 
prove of  my  plans  for  the  future.  I  was  con- 
vinced that  papa,  especially,  wotild  be  horrified 
at  the  idea  of  my  detention  in  a  Maison  de  Sant6, 
and  would  never  for  a  moment  countenance  it. 

I  longed  for  comforting  words  and  some  demon- 

253 


254  MY  OWN  STORY 

strations  of  affection  to  heal  my  wounded  heart, 
and  give  me  fresh  courage  for  the  trials  still  in 
store  for  me.  But  I  was  doomed  to  disappoint- 
ment. Mamma  received  me  coldly,  and  evi- 
dently thought  it  very  odd  that  I  wished  to  visit 
Salzbiirg  in  mid-winter;  she  said  that  I  must  be 
careful  on  no  account  to  excite  my  father,  for 
he  was  in  a  precarious  state  of  health. 

I  have  often  wondered  how  mamma  came  to 
have  a  daughter  such  as  I  am,  for  our  tempera- 
ments are  entirely  dissimilar.  She  has  been  a 
good  mother  according  to  her  lights,  but  I  am 
sure  she  must  have  regarded  us  girls  as  rather 
troublesome,  for  she  was  always  worrying  about 
our  chances  of  marriage,  and  it  has  been  a  bitter 
disappointment  to  her  that  she  has  only  con- 
trived to  "get  off"  myself  and  my  sister  Anne, 
who  became  the  wife  of  Prince  John  of  Hohen- 
lohe-Bartenstein-und-Jagtsberg,  in  190 1.  I  am 
told  that  ever  since  my  divorce  mamma  has  put 
all  the  blame  on  me  for  the  fact  that  my  sisters 
still  remain  spinsters,  and  maintains  that  my 
"impossible"  conduct  makes  probable  suitors 
chary  of  marrying  into  otir  family.  I  think  it  is 
a  great  pity  that  they  do  not  marry,  for  they 
are  sweet,  amiable  creatures,  who,  luckily  for 
themselves,    do    not    possess    those    Habsburg 


MY  OWN  STORY  255 

eccentricities  which  Leopold  and  I  have  inherited. 

I  lost  no  time  in  obtaining  an  interview  with 
papa,  and,  though  I  was  shocked  at  the  change 
in  his  appearance,  I  felt  that  I  must  tell  him 
everything.  I  fancy  mamma  must  have  pre- 
pared him  for  a  hysterical  outburst,  for  at  first 
he  treated  me  like  a  wayward  child  who  required 
humouring  and  soothing.  When  he  saw  that  I 
was  in  deadly  earnest,  however,  he  listened  more 
attentively  to  my  story,  and  I  could  see  he  was 
impressed  by  it. 

I  began  by  telling  him  how,  at  the  funeral 
of  King  Albert,  the  Chamberlain  had  struck  the 
first  note  of  warning  when  he  said  to  me:  "For 
the  love  of  Heaven,  Imperial  Highness,  be  careful 
in  all  your  words  and  actions,  for  there  is  a  plot 
against  you.    I  dare  not  tell  you  more." 

I  related  all  my  intolerable  persecution,  the 
indignities  to  which  I  had  been  subjected  by 
Von  Metzsch  and  his  spies,  and  the  bitter  hatred 
of  my  father-in-law.  Papa  asked  me  whether  I 
had  complained  to  Frederick- August,  and  on  my 
replying  in  the  affirmative  he  wished  to  know 
what  my  husband  thought.  What  answer  could 
I  make  except  to  tell  the  disconcerting  truth 
that  my  husband  only  looked  upon  my  ideas 
of  tyranny  and  persecution  as  creations  of  my 


256  MY  OWN  STORY 

imagination  and  an  unfortunate  tendency  to 
take  offence  where  none  was  intended. 

To  my  utter  and  undisguised  dismay,  papa,  of 
all  people,  seemed  to  share  Frederick- August's 
opinion.  He  said  that  he,  too,  was  convinced 
that  my  state  of  mind  arose  from  nervous 
depression  consequent  on  my  condition,  and 
advised  me  to  be  patient  and  return  to  Dresden. 
He  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  I  had  pro- 
bably mistaken  my  father-in-law's  attitude, 
that  he  could  only  have  been  actuated  by  the 
kindest  motives  when  he  suggested  I  should  leave 
the  palace,  and  that  instead  of  a  madhouse,  he 
only  meant  a  "rest-cure." 

"But,  Papa,"  I  stammered,  " Sonnenstein 
w^as  mentioned,  and  all  the  world  knows  that 
Sonne7istein  is  a  limatic  asylum." 

"Nothing  you  can  say,"  said  papa  firmly, 
"will  ever  convince  me  that  the  Royal  Family 
of  Saxony  could  be  guilty  of  such  a  dastardly 
act  as  to  intrigue  against  you,  for  besides  being 
Crown  Princess  you  are  my  daughter,  and  a 
member  of  the  Imperial  House  of  Austria."  I 
argued  that  with  some  natures  hatred  knows  no 
laws  and  acknowledges  no  rank,  and  I  instanced 
the  animosity  displayed  by  Bismarck  to  the  late 
Empress  Frederick  to  prove  that  similar  cases 


MY  OWN  STORY  257 

had  existed  at  other  Courts ;  but  papa  declined  to 
listen,  and  told  me  again  that,  once  and  for  all,  I 
had  better  make  up  my  mind  to  return  to  Dresden. 

"Am  I  then  definitely  to  understand,  papa," 
I  said  in  despair,  "that  you  refuse  to  believe 
my  story?  I  assure  you  I  have  not  exaggerated 
a  single  detail,  but  rather,  out  of  my  love  for 
you,  have  minimised  my  sufferings.  Papa, 
dearest,  you  have  always  been  my  best  friend; 
the  affection  between  us  is  deep  and  devoted; 
I  implore  you  to  let  it  plead  my  cause.  What 
will  become  of  me  if  you  desert  me?  You  will 
surely  not  grudge  your  unhappy  child  one  tiny 
corner  of  this  enormous  palace  where  she  can 
take  shelter  from  her  enemies.  Oh,  do  listen, 
don't  tiurn  from  me;  if  I  stay  here  I  shall  give 
you  no  more  trouble,  and  if  I  am  patient  the 
situation  at  Dresden  may  change  as  soon  as 
my  husband  knows  I  will  not  return  to  him, 
and  my  enemies  become  aware  that  I  am  under 
the  protection  of  the  Emperor  of  Austria 
and  yourself." 

I  clasped  my  hands  as  I  uttered  this  beseech- 
ing appeal.  Papa  was  visibly  affected,  but  he 
was  obdurate,  and  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  he  were 
repeating  a  well-instilled  lesson  when  he  said, 
somewhat  testily: 


258  MY  OWN  STORY 

"Oh,  dear,  how  importunate  you  are,  Louisa! 
I  am  very  sorry  for  you,  my  child,  if  you  are 
unhappy,  but  it  is  wrong  to  interfere  between 
husband  and  wife,  and  I  do  not  propose  to 
interfere  between  you  and  Frederick-August 
You  may  be  stire  that  if  he  says  there  is  nothing 
to  alarm  you,  he  is  right,  and  you  had  better 
dismiss  all  these  morbid  fancies  and  unjust 
suspicions  from  your  mind." 

That  absolutely  silenced  me,  and  I  hastily 
sought  my  brother  Leopold,  who  was  waiting 
to  hear  what  papa  had  decided.  WTien  I  told 
him,  he  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  commented 
somewhat  strongly  on  our  father's  obstinacy. 

"Papa  is  afraid  of  offending  Francis- Joseph," 
remarked  Leopold.  "For  my  own  part,  I  cannot 
see  why  we  Habsburgs  are  always  so  frightened 
of  him;  after  all  he  is  a  very  ordinary  old  man." 

"Leopold,"  I  said,  "my  state  is,  indeed, 
desperate.  You  are  my  last  hope,  don't  give 
me  up  to  my  enemies." 

"Give  you  up!  certainly  noty*  cried  the  good 
fellow.  "I  won't  see  my  sister  tyrannised  over 
by  a  set  of  pettifogging  priests,  and  a  Jesuitical 
old  King  and  his  creatures;  I  'm  sure  you  are 
quite  right  in  all  that  you  say,  and  I  think 
Frederick- August  has  n't  the  courage  of  a  mouse. 


MV  OWN  STORY  259 

I  should  like  to  see  any  one  try  to  persecute  my 
wife." 

"What  shall  we  do?"  I  queried,  because  I  felt 
certain  that  now  my  motive  for  coming  to  Salz- 
burg was  known,  mamma  would  write  whole 
reams  about  it  to  Dresden,  and  I  was  honestly 
frightened  at  the  thought  of  what  might  follow 
her  disclosures. 

"VlTiat  shall  we  do?  Why,  Louisa,  we  '11  run 
away  to-morrow  evening.  I  '11  make  all  the 
arrangements  for  our  journey,  and  I  think  our 
destination  had  better  be  Switzerland,"  said  my 
easy-going  brother. 

I  thought  of  the  old  saying,  that  any  port  is 
welcome  in  a  storm;  and,  though  I  had  never 
anticipated  leaving  Salzburg  so  precipitately, 
I  felt  that  instant  flight  was  the  only  thing 
possible  for  me.  I  made  one  more  appeal,  at 
the  eleventh  hour,  to  papa,  but  as  it  met  with 
no  satisfactory  response,  I  saw  that  the  die  was 
cast,  and  that  Leopold  and  I  must  throw  in  our 
lots  together. 

The  hours  of  that  eventful  evening  dragged 
on  with  leaden  feet.  Leopold  was  to  come 
and  fetch  me  at  half -past  twelve,  and  I  retired  to 
bed  early  in  order  to  disarm  the  suspicions  of 
my  maid,  who  slept  in  the  next  room  to  mine. 


260  MY  OWN  STORY 

Directly  I  thought  she  was  asleep,  I  got  out 
of  bed  and  dressed  very  quietly,  hardly  daring 
to  move.  As  the  weather  was  bitterly  cold,  I 
put  on  a  thick  black  serge  gown,  with  an  astra- 
chan  muff  and  boa,  and  a  felt  hat  swathed  with 
a  heavy  crepe  veil  completed  my  costume.  I 
collected  all  my  jewels,  three  changes  of  under- 
linen,  some  stockings  and  handkerchiefs,  with 
a  few  toilet  necessaries,  and  packed  them  in  a 
small  valise.  I  had  hardly  finished  my  simple 
preparations  before  Leopold  came  to  the  door, 
which  I  opened  softly,  and  we  crept  in  our 
stockinged  feet  along  the  icy  salon. 

The  distance  to  my  brother's  apartments 
seemed  interminable;  we  passed  cautiously 
through  the  State  rooms,  and  down  the  haunted 
picture  gallery,  where,  by  the  moon's  rays  I 
could  see  the  portraits  of  my  Habsburg  ances- 
tors looking  down  at  their  fugitive  descendants. 
The  faces  seemed,  in  my  overwrought  state, 
to  wear  a  look  of  cynical  amusement;  indeed, 
so  lifelike  did  they  appear,  that  I  should  not 
have  been  in  the  least  surprised  to  have  seen 
some  of  them  step  out  of  their  frames  and 
speak  to  us. 

At  last  we  reached  Leopold's  room,  and  then 
we  crept  down  the  staircase,  hardly  daring  to 


MY  OWN  STORY  261 

breathe,  and  starting  at  the  night  noises  which 
are  so  peculiar  to  ancient  buildings,  when  joints 
crack,  and  boards  complain,  and  strange  insects 
tick  and  crawl  behind  the  panelling.  Leopold 
unlocked  a  door  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  and 
we  found  ourselves  outside  in  the  great  square  of 
Salzburg.  It  was  very  still,  and  the  bright  moon- 
light flooded  the  snow  which  covered  the  ground ; 
the  cold  was  intense,  sixteen  degrees  below  zero, 
and  everything  looked  unreal  and  unearthly. 

As  I  gazed  up  at  the  shuttered  windows  of  the 
sleeping  palace,  I  thought  with  a  pang,  that  I 
was  making  another  farewell,  and  taking  another 
step  towards  the  unknown.  Ferdinand  of 
Bulgaria's  half-jesting  remark  about  the  nice 
little  plants  grown  at  Salzburg  flashed  across  my 
mind,  and  I  thought,  with  sad  irony,  that  one 
plant  at  least  had  had  a  painful  uprooting.  It 
did  not  flourish  where  it  was  transplanted,  and 
when  it  wished  once  again  to  take  root  in  the  old 
garden,  there  was  no  room  for  it. 

A  closed  carriage  with  swift  horses  was  wait- 
ing for  us,  and  we  drove  off  at  full  speed  to  a 
wayside  station  three  hours'  distance  from 
Salzburg;  there  we  caught  the  Vienna  express 
to  Zurich,  and  another  turn  in  fortune's  wheel 
was  accomplished. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


/  arrive  at  Zurich — My  future  sister-in-law — A  rude 
awakening — My  terrible  position — The  only  way — 
M.  Giron  joins  me — A  wild  goose  chase — The  secret 
police — Their  fruitless  journey — Legal  proceedings 
commence. 


263 


CHAPTER  XVI 


'\  A  7"E  reached  Zurich  the  same  evening  at  five 
o'clock,  and  it  was  not  until  I  found  my- 
self actually  in  Switzerland  that  I  felt  safe  from 
pursuit  and  capture.  My  brother,  however,  was 
kindness  itself,  and  tried  to  make  me  look  on  the 
bright  side  of  things;  directly  we  arrived  at 
Zurich  he  wired  to  my  father  that  we  had  gone 
to  Switzerland,  and  intended  to  remain  there. 

I  seemed  to  exist  in  a  kind  of  waking  dream; 
I  had  now  indeed  crossed  the  Rubicon,  and  I 
realised  that  I  had  burnt  a  good  many  of  my 
boats.  When  the  ordinary  woman  flees  from 
the  conventions,  she  is  after  all  only  going 
further  into  a  world  with  which  she  is  already 
acquainted ;  I  was  in  the  position  of  an  explorer, 
and  I  endured  many  of  the  sufferings  which 
invariably  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  pioneer. 

When  I  found  myself  on  the  platform  at  Zurich, 

I  grasped  the  fact  that  I  was  only  a  unit  in  the 

hurry  and  bustle  around  me.     I  thought  of  the 

265 


266  MY  OWN  STORY 

ceremony  which  usually  attends  the  arrival  of 
royalty  at  a  railway  station;  but  for  me  there 
was  no  reception,  no  red  carpet,  and  no  friends 
or  relatives  to  meet  me.  No  one  was  aware 
that  the  black-robed  unhappy-looking  woman 
and  the  handsome  young  man  who  accompanied 
her  were  the  Crown  Princess  of  Saxony  and 
her  brother  the  Archduke  Leopold. 

We  drove  at  once  to  the  hotel,  and,  utterly 
wearied  in  body  and  mind,  I  threw  myself  on  the 
bed,  and  sobbed  bitterly.  Here  again,  every- 
thing was  strange  to  me.  I  missed  m.y  creature 
comforts,  for  I,had  no  maid  to  arrange  my  things, 
no  satin  dressing-gown  to  slip  on,  no  cry st al- 
and-silver bottles  full  of  fragrant  essences  to 
reUeve  my  throbbing  head,  nothing  of  my  own 
except  what  was  contained  in  the  unimportant 
looking  valise  which  had  been  placed  in  a  comer 
of  the  room. 

I  contrasted  the  hotel  bedroom  with  my  own 
room  at  Dresden,  which  was  replete  with  every 
comfort  dear  to  the  heart  of  a  delicately  nurtured 
woman,  and,  as  the  material  side  of  things  pre- 
sented itself,  a  wave  of  hatred  swept  over  me, 
and  for  the  first  time  since  my  marriage  I  dis- 
liked my  husband.  It  was,  perhaps,  only  the 
condition    which    occasionally    manifests    itself 


MY  OWN  STORY  267 

during  pregnancy,  when  the  mother  is  seized 
with  an  inexpHcable  antipathy  to  the  father  of 
her  child;  but  apart  from  this  there  was  an 
undercurrent  of  angry  revolt  at  Frederick- 
August's  weakness  and  lack  of  perception  of 
my  troubles,  and  these  unhappy  feelings  were 
doubtless  intensified  by  my  strange  surround- 
ings. 

I  do  not  know  how  long  I  continued  to  indulge 
in  this  painful  retrospection,  but  I  must  have 
dozed  off  at  last,  for  I  was  aroused  by  the  open- 
ing of  my  door.  The  electric  lights  were  switched 
on,  and  when  I  raised  myself  to  see  who  the 
intruder  was,  I  encountered  the  gaze  of  a  pair  of 
Madonna-like  eyes  in  a  beautiful  face  framed 
with  masses  of  magnificent  Titian-red  hair. 
The  newcomer  was  obviously  not  of  my  world, 
but  I  was  not  left  long  in  doubt  of  her  identity, 
for  she  introduced  herself  to  me  as  my  brother 
Leopold's  future  wife. 

I  was  taken  aback.  I  had  not  expected  this, 
and  I  did  not  want  it.  I  knew,  indeed,  that 
Leopold  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  beautiful  girl 
of  the  people,  but  it  never  crossed  my  mind  that 
he  intended  to  marry  her,  and  I  felt  instinctively 
that  her  arrival  in  our  midst  would  upset  all 
my  plans. 


268  MY  OWN  STORY 

I  tried,  however,  to  disguise  my  annoyance, 
and  to  put  some  warmth  into  my  greeting,  but 
she  was  quite  impossible,  and  I  subsequently 
discovered  that  she  had  not  even  been  trained 
in  the  rudiments  of  the  art  of  behaving  at  table. 

Fortunately,  there  was  not  the  faintest  sus- 
picion of  our  identity,  and  after  the  imsophis- 
ticated  young  woman  had  gone  to  bed,  Leopold 
and  I  sat  up  all  night  discussing  our  plans  with 
the  result  that  I  received  another  shock.  I  had 
had  the  most  absolute  conviction  until  that 
moment  that  Leopold  would  make  his  home 
with  me  in  Switzerland  until  the  death  of  my 
father-in-law  should  make  my  return  to  Saxony 
possible ;  and  he  had  never  given  me  the  slightest 
hint  that  he  had  other  views.  Imagine  my  sur- 
prise when  he  told  me,  after  much  hesitation, 
that  it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  us  to  carry 
out  our  original  idea,  as  he  intended  to  marry 
almost  at  once,  and  that  this  step  would,  of 
course,  involve  him  in  endless  business  matters. 

"I  firmly  believe,  Louisa,"  he  said,  "that 
though  you  are  safe  for  the  moment,  it  is  only 
for  the  moment,  and  that  you  will  eventually  be 
forced  to  return  to  Dresden.  You  idolise  yoiir 
children  to  such  an  extent  that  they  will  be 
employed  as  the  lure  to  get  you  back,  and  once 


MY  OWN  STORY  269 

back,  you  will  (especially  after  this  escapade) 
be  consigned  to  a  madhouse." 

On  hearing  these  terribly  candid  words,  I 
quite  broke  down,  and  I  think  my  abject  distress 
touched  my  brother's  heart.  He  assured  me 
that  he  had  no  intention  of  leaving  me  then  and 
there,  and  that  he  would  continue  to  protect  me 
and  my  interests.  I  did  not  reproach  him  with 
his  broken  promises;  I  felt  too  stunned,  and 
said  wearily  that  I  must  take  an  hour's  rest, 
and  endeavour  to  face  the  new  aspect  of  the 
situation  with  all  the  calmness  and  fortitude  I 
could  muster. 

I  fully  appreciated  the  fact  that  I  had  no 
home,  and  no  friends  with  whom  I  could  take 
shelter,  even  if  they  dared  offer  it.  I  stood 
alone,  buffeted  by  the  waves  of  intrigue,  and  I 
realised  that  I,  a  totally  inexperienced  woman, 
should  now  be  forced  to  fight  my  enemies  a 
outrance. 

The  winter  dawn  was  just  breaking  when  I 
returned  to  my  room,  and  as  I  wondered  whether 
it  would  be  the  precursor  of  many  hopeless  days, 
despair  overcame  me,  and  I  had  an  impulse  to 
put  an  end  to  my  troubles  by  self-destruction, 
but  the  next  instant  I  thought  of  my  unborn 
child,   and  the  dreadful  feeling  passed.     The 


270  MY  OWN  STORY 

flood-gates  of  my  tears  were  opened,  and  the 
icy  bands  round  my  spirit  thawed  as  I  wept, 
remembering  that  after  all  I  had  still  something 
to  live  for.  In  five  months  I  should  be  no  longer 
alone,  little  hands  would  clasp  mine,  innocent 
eyes  would  meet  my  loving  gaze,  and  I  should 
also  have  a  confidant  who,  being  unable  to  talk, 
would  be  incapable  of  betraying  my  secrets. 
This  quieter  mood  came  as  a  blessing,  enab- 
ling me  to  get  a  little  sleep  which  I  sorely 
needed,  but  w^hen  I  awoke  my  fears  were  re- 
doubled. 

Leopold's  fiancee  was  so  gauche  and  exas- 
perating that  she  aggravated  my  nervous  con- 
dition tenfold.  I  think  the  poor  thing  really 
meant  well,  but  when  she  treated  me  as  a 
princess  her  behaviour  was  laughable,  and  when 
she  treated  me  as  an  equal,  she  was  still  more 
ridiculous.  Leopold,  always  excitable,  was  now 
more  so  than  ever;  he  kept  on  telling  me  that 
my  doom  was  sealed  in  Dresden,  and  he  pictured 
the  horrors  of  my  fate. 

In  fact,  everything  conspired  to  upset  my 
mental  balance,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  I  entirely  lost  my  sense  of  proportion,  and 
worked  myself  up  into  a  needless  state  of  terror. 
The  ever-recurrent  idea  of  the  Maison  de  Sante 


MY  OWN  STORY  271 

became  a  perfect  obsession  and  upset  my  usual 
calmness  of  mind. 

At  last,  after  much  fruitless  cogitation,  I  took 
a  desperate  resolve,  and  one  fraught  with  dis- 
astrous consequences.  I  decided  that  the  only- 
way  out  of  the  impasse  in  which  I  found  myself, 
was  to  take  some  action  which  would  effectually 
prevent  my  returning  to  Dresden,  even  as  the 
victim  of  my  triumphant  enemies.  What  could 
I  do?  Defiance  would  not  serve  my  purpose, 
any  appeal  to  my  husband  would  be  overruled, 
and  I  shrank  from  the  thought  of  appealing  to 
the  public.  What  else  remained?  Suddenly  the 
solution  flashed  through  my  mind,  I  seemed  to 
hear  the  words,  "Compromise  yourself";  and  to 
the  voice  which  whispered  within  me  I  answered, 
"With  whom?" 

I  knew  well  that  I  had  been  accused  of  having 
secret  love  affairs,  and  I  had  been  contemp- 
tuously amused  when  I  heard  the  scandalous 
gossip,  for,  as  I  never  went  anywhere  without 
a  lady-in-waiting,  and  always  occupied  the  same 
room  as  my  husband,  such  ridiculous  lies  seemed 
beneath  refutation.  But  now  I  thought  of  the 
one  person  who  had  already  suffered  through  his 
friendship  with  me,  and  who  had  sworn,  in  an 
impulsive  fashion,   to  dedicate  himself  to  my 


273  MY  OWN  STORY 

service,  no  matter  when  and  how  I  required 
it.  This  was  M.  Giron,  who  at  the  moment 
represented  my  only  hope  of  safety  from  my 
father-in-law,  and  the  horrors  of  a  Maison  de 
Sante. 

I  considered  this  daring  expedient  all  day, 
and  asked  Leopold  his  opinion  about  it.  He  did 
not  discourage  me,  partly  because  the  unusual 
always  appealed  to  him,  but  mainly  because  his 
one  wish  was  to  be  free  to  live  his  life  with  the 
woman  of  his  choice,  unencumbered  by  any 
family  tie  in  the  shape  of  a  runaway  sister. 

Let  the  world  judge  what  must  have  been  the 
state  of  my  mind,  when  my  terror  of  my  enemies 
was  so  great  that  it  impelled  me  to  sacrifice  my 
reputation  in  order  to  escape  from  them.  The 
Habsburgs  have  always  been  accounted  light 
livers  and  light  lovers,  but  I  had  never  had  any 
inclination  to  emulate  my  forebears ;  I  certainly 
was  in  love  with  love  because  it  represented 
to  me  much  that  was  beautiful  and  happy, 
but  I  had  never  dreamed  hitherto  of  betraying 
my  husband,  or  forfeiting  the  respect  of  my 
children. 

I  was  perfectly  aware  that  once  the  step  was 
taken  it  coiild  not  be  retraced;  I  saw  myself  as 
the  centre  of  scandal,  pointed  at  as  an  unfaithful 


MY  OWN  STORY  273 

wife  and  a  heartless  mother.  I  fancied  I  could 
hear  the  coarse,  indecent  gossip  that  would 
inevitably  circulate,  and  I  felt  myself  already 
enrolled  in  the  ranks  of  that  vast  army  of  women 
who  have  been  sacrificed  at  the  altar  of  their 
affections. 

The  ordinary  woman  has  only  to  face  the 
condemnation  of  her  own  circle  when  she  out- 
rages the  proprieties.  I  was  in  a  far  worse  pre- 
dicament, for  I  am  related  to  many  of  the  royal 
families  of  Europe,  and  I  had  to  reckon  with 
the  Emperor  Francis- Joseph,  who,  as  the  head 
of  the  Habsburgs,  sits  like  Olympian  Jove, 
hurling  the  thunderbolts  of  banishment  and  loss 
of  rank  and  dignities  at  the  rebellious  and  way- 
ward members  of  his  house.  There  was  also 
the  glaring  publicity  that  would  inevitably  be 
given  to  my  conduct  by  every  newspaper  in 
the  world. 

Apart  from  the  fall  which  I  knew  I  must 
suffer,  I  was  full  of  grief  at  the  idea  of  causing 
my  father  any  pain,  and,  as  this  troubled  me 
deeply,  I  resolved  to  make  one  last  appeal 
to  my  parents.  I  therefore  telegraphed  to 
them,  begging  to  be  allowed  to  return  home. 
I  awaited  the  reply  with  indescribable  anxiety, 
and  at  last  it  came.     With  trembling  fingers 


274  ^^Y  OWN  STORY 

I  opened  the  telegram,  and  read  the  words 
which  sealed  my  fate : 

"Nous  avons  d'autres  enfants,  nous  ne 
pouvons  pas  nous  occuper  de  Toi." 

I  saw  nothing  left  for  me  but  to  summon  M. 
Giron,  and  he  lost  no  time  in  hurrying  to  Zurich. 
He  was  at  first  most  unwilling  to  let  me  make  the 
sacrifice  I  proposed,  but  I  reminded  him  of  his 
promises,  and  held  him  to  his  word.  Looking 
back  with  matured,  sober  judgment  I  can  see 
that  I  was  entirely  misguided  in  my  method  of 
defying  fate;  but  my  explanation  must  be  that 
my  mind  was  then  unfitted  to  judge  of  the  real 
seriousness  of  my  act.  We  Habsburgs  never 
meet  the  right  person  at  the  right  time  to  save 
us  from  ourselves,  although  in  truth  I  must  say 
that  we  are  the  most  difficult  mortals  to  influence 
when  once  we  have  decided  on  pursuing  our 
own  course. 

A  conclave  between  Leopold,  M.  Giron,  and 
myself  resiilted  in  our  deciding  to  leave  Zurich 
for  Geneva  without  loss  of  time.  We  drew  up 
a  telegram  to  Herr  von  Tiimpling,  the  Chamber- 
lain at  Dresden,  in  which  I  said  that  I  had 
decided  never  to  return  to  Dresden.  The  form 
was  posted  to  a  friend  of  M.  Giron's  at  Brussels, 
and  despatched  from  there  to  throw  the  Court 


MY  OWN  STORY  275 

off  the  scent,  and  to  enable  us  to  cover  up 
our  tracks. 

My  telegram  produced  a  feeling  of  utter  con- 
sternation at  the  palace,  although  the  people 
were  kept  in  ignorance  that  anything  unusual 
had  occurred.  Bulletins  from  Salzburg  were 
issued  to  the  effect  that  I  was  confined  to  my 
room  with  a,  severe  cold,  and  the  Dresden 
newspapers  copied  these  reports.  Everything 
was  done  to  prevent  a  scandal,  and  Frau  von 
Fritsch  and  Herr  von  Tiimpling,  accompanied 
by  a  perfect  retinue  of  footmen,  maids,  and 
luggage,  set  out  at  frantic  speed  for  Brussels  in 
the  vain  hope  of  discovering  my  whereabouts. 
The  secret  police  searched  every  hotel,  but  to 
no  purpose,  and  at  last  the  much  chagrined 
Royal  retinue  had  to  return  to  Dresden.  A 
five  days '  search  then  took  place  all  over 
Germany,  and  when  Switzerland  was  finally 
discovered  to  be  my  place  of  concealment,  the 
services  of  the  German  secret  police  were  enlisted 
in  order  to  effect  my  arrest.  Their  predicament 
when  they  reached  Geneva  was  something  like 
that  of  the  soldiers  in  the  unfortunate  Helder 
expedition,  when: 

The  mighty  Duke  of  York 
He  had  ten  thousand  men: 


276  MY  OWN  STORY 

He  marched  them  up  to  the  top  of  the  hill 
And  he  marched  them  down  again. 
And  when  they  were  up,  they  were  up, 
And  when  they  were  down,  they  were  down. 
And  when  they  were  only  half-way  up, 
They  were  neither  up  nor  down. 

The  secret  police  of  Berlin  have  a  stupendous 
notion  of  their  own  importance,  and  this  makes 
them  perfectly  oblivious  of  the  laws  of  any- 
other  coimtry  except  Germany,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  they  believe  they  could  arrest  the  Pope 
himself  merely  by  demanding  admittance  to 
the  Vatican  in  the  name  of  William  II. 

When  the  officers  arrived  at  Geneva,  they 
were,  according  to  their  own  idea,  absolute 
masters  of  the  situation.  They  were  greatly 
perturbed,  however,  when  they  alighted  from  the 
train,  to  encounter  the  Swiss  Police  who  explained 
(waiving  any  question  of  an  official  introduction) 
that  they  must  at  once  return  to  Berlin,  as  no 
one,  be  it  prince  or  peasant,  can  be  arrested  by 
foreign  police  in  Geneva.  The  emissaries  were 
therefore  forced  to  beat  a  somewhat  undignified 
retreat,  much  to  their  annoyance  and  disgust. 

M.  Adrien  Lachenal  acted  as  my  lawyer 
at  Geneva.  He  is  a  most  charming  and  highly 
intelligent  man  who  did  his  utm.ost  on  my 
behalf.    I  also  employed  a  lawyer  from  Leipzig, 


MY  OWN  STORY  277 

Dr.  Zehme,  and  another  lawyer  represented  me 
at  Dresden.  Everything  was  in  perfect  chaos, 
but  I  steadfastly  set  my  face  against  the  idea  of 
a  divorce,  and  only  urged  the  necessity  for  a 
separation;  all  I  said  was  misrepresented  to 
my  husband,  and  I  saw  that  my  enemies  were 
resolved  to  move  heaven  and  earth  to  prevent 
a  rapprochement. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


Aprh  moi  le  Deluge — The  people* s  sympathy — The  stone- 
ihrowers — Blind  justice — Money  versus  honour — The 
letter  that  never  reached  me — /  enter  La  Maiterie — 
Bolts  and  bars — A  plague  of  nurses — Cold  food  hut 
comforting  chocolate — A  spirit  in  prison — /  look  far 
hack — My  awakening. 


979 


CHAPTER  XVII 


'\  X /"HEN  the  people  of  Saxony  knew  that  I  had 
actually  left  Dresden,  their  excitement 
and  anger  were  such  as  to  baffle  description, 
and  everything  possible  had  to  be  done  by  the 
authorities  to  restore  quiet.  My  flight  was 
attributed  to  the  treatment  I  had  experienced 
from  my  father-in-law  and  the  priests;  and 
members  of  the  Royal  Family  were  obliged  to 
keep  indoors,  so  great  was  the  outcry  against 
them. 

A  black  cat  was  killed,  and  its  skin,  after  being 
turned  inside  out,  was  hung  at  the  entrance  of 
the  King's  Palace,  and  above  it  was  nailed  a 
card  bearing  these  words : 

"  Be  careful;  this  will  be  your  fate 
at  our  hands." 

Mathilde  was  afraid  to  walk  out;  and  even 
poor  King  Albert's  place  of  bimal  was  seized 
by  the  mob. 

Another  placard,  fixed  outside  the  church, 
intimated  that  the  people  regretted  their  beloved 

281 


282  MY  OWN  STORY 

King  was  no  more,  and  hinted  that  my  father- 
in-law  would  not  be  missed  by  his  subjects  were 
he  within  the  tomb  instead. 

The  "manifesto"  ended  with  the  words: 
"The  old  King  stirs  in  his  coffin  with  indigna- 
tion at  the  fate  of  his  Louisa." 

Thousands  of  persons  marched  to  the  palace  to 
demand  an  explanation  of  my  flight,  but  the 
outer  gates  were  closed ;  at  last  there  was  fighting 
in  the  streets,  as  the  crowd  tried  to  force  an 
entrance,  and  was  opposed  by  the  police  and 
the  troops.  For  some  time  passions  ran  high, 
and  above  the  tumult  the  insistent  cry  of  "Bring 
us  back  our  Louisa,"  must  have  reached  the 
ears  of  my  enemies  within  the  gates,  and  driven 
home  to  them  the  truth  that  I  was  not  without 
friends  in  Saxony. 

Frau  von  Fritsch  was  stoned  when  she  showed 
herself  in  the  streets;  a  novel  experience  for  her, 
no  doubt,  for,  although  she  was  an  adept  stone- 
thrower  herself,  I  am  siu^e  this  was  the  first  time 
in  her  life  that  she  had  ever  been  the  recipient 
of  tangible  missiles. 

George  von  Metzsch  was  warned  by  anonym- 
ous letters  to  keep  out  of  sight,  for  if  he  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  mob  he  would  be  at  once  "torn 
to  pieces."    The  situacion  became  so  menacing 


MY  OWN  STORY  285 

that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  legal  steps 
to  be  taken  against  me  as  soon  as  possible. 

It  is  universally  known  that  divorce  is  not 
recognised  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and 
as  no  Austrian  archduchess  is  ever  married 
civilly,  it  was  somewhat  difficult  for  my  father- 
in-law  and  his  advisers  to  find  a  way  out  of  the 
impasse.  Divorce  proceedings  were  eventually 
based  on  the  document  signed  by  my  father  and 
the  Emperor  of  Austria;  and  that,  and  the  Deed 
of  Renunciation,  were  the  only  written  evidences 
of  a  marriage-contract.  A  special  case  was, 
therefore,  arranged  on  those  lines,  and  a  divorce 
was  pronounced  without  the  sanction  of  my 
father  or  the  Emperor.  The  clauses  were 
modelled  on  those  of  ordinary  divorce  petitions, 
which  could  not,  of  course,  apply  to  members 
of  the  Imperial  House  of  Austria,  who  are  not 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  any  court. 

My  father-in-law,  always  original  in  his  meth- 
ods, was  particularly  so  in  the  matter  of  my 
divorce,  calling  together  a  special  tribunal  of 
his  own,  regardless  of  the  illegalities  involved. 

This  throws  an  interesting  light  on  the  medi- 
aeval methods  prevalent  in  Saxony,  for  in  no 
other  civilised  country  would  it  be  possible  to 
convene  such  a  tribunal.     The  King  proposed 


286  MY  OWN  STORY 

to  enact  the  role  of  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and 
appointed  twelve  judges  under  him,  but  at  the 
last  moment  his  courage  failed.  Perhaps  he 
was  confronted  by  visions  of  disapproving  saints, 
and  he  therefore  summoned  the  faithful  Von 
T^Ietzsch,  and  told  him  that  he  must  do  all  the 
unsavoury  work  because,  as  a  fervent  Catholic, 
my  father-in-law  was  greatly  perturbed  at  the 
idea  of  a  divorce,  and  was  also  apprehensive  as 
to  the  attitude  of  the  Vatican. 

This  extraordinary  court  of  justice  was  an 
absolute  farce.  Quantities  of  forged  letters  were 
produced  purporting  to  have  been  written  by 
me,  but  even  the  limited  intelligence  of  the 
judges  convened  failed  to  see  how  I  could 
possibly  have  penned  all  the  letters  attributed 
to  me,  for,  had  I  done  so,  I  should  have  had 
to  write  for  years  from  morning  to  night  without 
a  moment  to  eat,  sleep,  or  dress.  The  saddest 
and  most  disgraceful  part  of  the  whole  thing 
was  the  bribery  which  was  resorted  to  in  order 
to  obtain  possession  of  some  of  my  correspond- 
ence so  as  to  forge  letters  full  of  my  intimate 
tournure  de  phrases  and  the  most  striking 
■  pectdiarities  of  my  caligraphy.  Unfortunately, 
money  triumphed  over  honour,  and  my  enemies 
were  able  to  secure  a  great  many  private  letters 


MY  OWN  STORY  287 

written  to  certain  persons  whom  I  had  trusted 
and  befriended. 

I  was  desperately  unhappy,  and,  in  addition'to 
my  mental  misery,  I  was  subjected  to  a  positive 
persecution  from  newspaper  reporters.  I  have 
always  refused  to  be  interviewed,  and  the  many 
so-called  interviews  with  me,  alleged  to  have 
taken  place  in  Switzerland  and  elsewhere,  were 
baseless  fabrications. 

I  remember  on  one  occasion  being  confronted 
by  a  reporter  who  represented  an  American  jour- 
nal. As  I  came  out  of  my  room,  he  approached 
me  and  said,  without  preamble:  "Say,  Princess, 
I  've  the  power  to  cover  this  stairway  with 
bank-notes  for  you  to  walk  on  if  you  will  just 
let  me  have  a  few  words  with  you.    Is  it  a  deal?" 

I  took  no  notice  of  him,  but  this  was  only  one 
of  many  worries;  and  the  constant  strain,  added 
to  my  delicate  health,  made  me  feel  on  the  verge 
of  a  bad  nervous  breakdown. 

M.  Giron  did  not  remain  long  in  Switzerland. 
My  reputation  being  thoroughly  compromised 
by  his  presence,  my  object  was  achieved,  and 
he  therefore  returned  to  Brussels. 

In  February,  1903,  I  heard  that  my  beloved 
"Tia"  was  dangerously  ill  and,  torn  with  de- 
sperate anxiety,  I  v/ired  to  my  husband  and 


288  MY  OWN  STORY 

begged  him,  as  a  most  unhappy  mother,  to 
allow  me  to  see  my  child.  Frederick- August  did 
not  reply  himself ;  the  cruel  answer  came  from 
Von  Metzsch,  and  it  was  No.  Von  Metzsch 
added  that  if  I  attempted  to  see  "Tia"  I  should 
be  immediately  arrested  on  the  frontier. 

That  almost  broke  my  spirit.  I  had  never 
until  then  believed  the  world  was  so  hard,  and 
the  knowledge  of  my  forlorn  and  friendless  state 
caused  me  the  most  poignant  anguish.  My 
thoughts  always  reverted  to  my  husband,  and  I 
constantly  wondered  of  what  he  was  thinking, 
and  how  the  days  passed  for  him.  A  thousand 
times  I  longed  to  see  him,  to  be  forgiven  and 
sheltered  from  the  indignities  which  now  fell 
to  my  lot,  and  I  hoped  against  hope  that  Fred- 
erick-August would  assert  himself  and  save 
me,  even  though  the  eleventh  hour  had  passed. 
It  is  only  right  that  I  should  here  defend  my 
husband,  whose  seeming  attitude  of  indifference 
to  my  sufferings  has  been  strongly  commented 
upon.  I  know  now,  when  it  is  too  late,  that  he 
sent  Herr  von  Tiimpling  expressly  to  Geneva 
with  a  letter  in  which  he  urgently  begged  me  to 
return  to  him  with  his  complete  asstirance  that 
all  wotild  be  well. 

His    contemptible     emissary     remained     in 


MY  OWN  STORY  289 

Geneva  for  three  days,  but  always  evaded  my 
efforts  to  see  him  though  I  wrote  and  asked 
for  an  interview.  It  seems  incredible  that 
such  base  measures  were  employed  to  prevent 
my  husband  and  myself  from  ever  arriving  at 
an  understanding,  but  I  owe  it  to  Frederick- 
August  to  tell  the  world  that  he  was  willing  to 
forget  the  past,  and  it  affords  me  a  certain  sad 
pleasure  to  think  that,  although  his  letter  never 
reached  me,  it  was  most  certainly  written. 

I  was,  in  addition  to  my  other  troubles,  greatly 
perplexed  as  to  ways  and  means;  and  I  had  to 
face  financial  worries,  an  experience  I  had  never 
hitherto  known.  I '  asked  for  my  allowance, 
but  it  was  refused,  and  I  knew  it  was  worse  than 
useless  to  appeal  for  help  to  Salzburg.  My 
lawyer,  M.  Lachenal,  tried  to  persuade  me 
that,  as  I  required  perfect  rest  of  mind  and 
body,  the  best  thing  I  could  do  was  to  go  into 
a  private  nursing  home  until  matters  could  be 
arranged,  and  I  decided  to  follow  his  advice  and 
enter  La  Maiterie,  near  Nyon,  a  few  miles  from 
Geneva. 

Just  before  leaving,  I  saw  Professor  Jentzer, 
who  came  for  the  express  purpose  of  telling  me 
that  he  had  received  a  letter  from  the  powers  at 
Dresden  asking  him  to  certify  that  I  was  not 


290  MY  OWN  STORY 

enceinte  when  I  left  Saxony,  and  offering  him  a 
very  large  sum  of  money  if  he  complied  with 
this  outrageous  request.  He  told  me  that  he 
had  left  the  letter  unanswered,  and  added: 
"  I  would  never  lend  myself  to  such  an  infamous 
thing." 

M.  Lachenal  made  all  the  preparations  for 
my  departure,  and  as  Leopold  also  strongly 
approved  of  it,  I  ended  b}'-  thinking  that  it 
might  probably  be  all  for  the  best. 

On  the  morning  of  February  6th,  I  left  Geneva 
by  train  accompanied  by  Leopold,  Dr.  Zehme 
(my  Saxon  lawyer),  and  Dr.  Jentzer,  the  head  of 
the  Maternity  Hospital  in  Geneva.  We  reached 
Nyon,  where  a  carriage  awaited  us;  it  was  a 
sullen,  depressing  day;  the  skies  were  overcast,  a 
persistent  drizzling  rain  fell  steadily,  and,  as  the 
carriage  was  somewhat  small,  we  were  packed,  a 
damp,  uncomfortable  mass  of  htmianity,  inside. 

La  A'laiterie  is  situated  near  the  Lake;  it  lies 
in  a  plain  surrounded  by  park  and  pastiire  land, 
and  my  first  glimpse  of  it  through  the  steady 
downpour  showed  a  large  house  and  several 
small  villas.  On  our  arrival  I  was  introduced  to 
the  resident  physician.  Dr.  Martin,  a  charming 
man,  somewhat  unkempt  and  shaggy  in  appear- 
ance, but  with  a  heart  of  gold.    Professor  Forel, 


MY  OWN  STORY  291 

head  of  the  Asyltun  for  the  Insane,  was  also  in 
attendance;  he  is,  I  believe,  the  greatest  brain 
specialist  in  Switzerland,  and  he  is  also  an 
authority  on  natural  history.  Directly  I  heard 
his  name  it  seemed  strangely  familiar  to  me,  and 
I  suddenly  recollected  that  he  was  always  being 
quoted  by  Mathilde  as  the  one  man  in  the  world 
who  knew  all  about  the  antics  of  ants. 

Dr.  Martin  told  me  I  must  sign  a  paper  saying 
that  I  wished  voluntarily  to  enter  La  Maiterie, 
and  that  I  agreed  to  give  myself  up  to  the  care 
of  himself  and  his  colleague.  Something  intui- 
tively warned  me  that  it  would  be  as  well  if  I 
did  NOT  sign  any  paper,  and  I  therefore  firmly 
refused  to  do  so;  I  agreed,  however,  to  allow 
my  lawyer  to  prepare  a  document  saying  that 
I  was  willing  to  stop  at  the  "Home,"  but  only 
so  long  as  I  wished,  and  not  a  single  day  longer. 
This  was  accordingly  done.  A  smart  nurse  in 
uniform  was  sent  for  by  Dr.  Martin,  and  after 
I  had  said  good-bye  to  Leopold  and  the  lawyers, 
I  was  taken  to  the  little  villa  where  my  rooms 
had  been  prepared. 

I  was  very  tired,  but  my  natural  curiosity 
forced  me  to  display  some  interest  in  my  strange 
surroundings,  and,  as  I  was  crossing  a  corridor, 
I  was  startled  by  a  succession  of  piercing  shrieks 


292  MY  OWN  STORY 

proceeding  from  a  room  opposite.  I  stopped, 
half  afraid,  and  tiimed  to  the  niirse  to  inquire 
the  cause. 

She  looked  at  me  in  rather  an  amused  way, 
and  then  said  with  complete  indifference:  "That 
noise?  Oh,  that  's  only  a  Polish  count  who  has 
been  here  for  the  last  thirty-five  years!" 

Up  to  now  I  had  believed  La  Maiterie  was  a 
nursing  home;  now  I  knew,  with  feelings  of 
indescribable  horror,  that  it  was  a  lunatic 
asylimi. 

I  thought  the  shock  wotdd  have  killed  me. 
.Here  was  I  in  the  very  place  I  most  dreaded 
in  the  world— a  Maison  de  Sante — ^through  fear 
of  which  I  had  sacrificed  my  reputation.  This 
last  irony  of  fate  was  too  much  for  my  over- 
wrought nerves  and,  utterly  worn  out  and 
crushed,  I  went  into  the  villa,  sank  into  a  chair, 
imable  to  speak,  and  almost  fainted  from 
exhaustion.  I  looked  at  the  windows:  they  were 
barred,  and  a  glance  into  my  bedroom  showed 
that  there  also  I  was  a  prisoner.  Who,  save 
myself,  or  any  one  who  has  experienced  what  I 
did  can  realise  the  horror  of  such  surroundings? 
I  yearned  for  merciful  oblivion  to  come,  and  for 
a  time  obliterate  the  terror  of  bolts  and  bars, 
but  instead  of  oblivion,  every  faculty  I  possessed 


MY  OWN  STORY  293 

seemed  more  keenly  alert  than  ever.  I  suffered 
such  agonies  that  the  recollection  of  them,  even 
to-day,  makes  me  shudder  again,  and  thank 
God  for  freedom! 

I  asked  the  nurse  for  something  to  eat,  and 
after  an  interminable  time  various  enamelled 
dishes  were  brought  containing  chilled,  badly 
cooked,  unappetising  food,  the  sight  of  which 
nauseated  me,  and  effectually  subdued  any 
desire  to  eat.  I  was  given  a  common  spoon, 
but  no  knife  or  fork,  and  the  simplest  comforts 
of  an  ordinary  meal  were  lacking.  I  turned 
away  with  repugnance,  and  a  sense  of  revolt 
against  life  seized  me,  and,  like  Job,  I  almost 
wished  to  curse  God  and  die,  so  lonely  and 
heart-broken  did  I  feel.  But  even  as  I  wept, 
little  tender  lips  seemed  to  kiss  away  my  tears. 
I  imagined  I  felt  soft  clinging  arms  round  my 
neck,  and  I  pictured  innocent  eyes  looking  at 
me  with  that  wisdom  of  all  the  ages  which  is 
only  seen  in  the  eyes  of  a  young  child.  A  voice 
seemed  to  whisper,  bidding  me  be  consoled, 
for  out  of  much  suffering  I  should  find  much 
joy,  and  also  to  take  courage  for  the  sake  of 
that  little  being  I  should  very  soon  bring  into 
the  world.  ' 

Comforted  and  reassured,  I  dried  my  tears 


294  MY  OWN  STORY 

and  proceeded  to  examine  my  rooms  which, 
except  for  the  "locked  in"  feeling  that  per- 
vaded the  whole  villa,  were  quite  cosy  and 
tastefully  furnished,  and  if  I  was  barred  in,  the 
outside  world  was  most  effectually  barred  out — 
a  consoling  thought  after  my  hotel  experiences. 

Dr.  Martin  suggested  that  I  should  have  two 
nurses,  but  I  declined  his  offer,  for  there  is 
probably  no  being  so  unsympathetic  and  tact- 
less as  the  average  mental  nurse,  and  I  was 
anxious  to  keep  them  at  a  distance.  The  more 
I  saw  of  the  nurses  during  my  stay  at  La  Mai- 
terie,  the  more  I  detested  them;  with  very 
few  exceptions  they  were  totally  unsuited  by 
temperament  to  look  after  the  poor  sufferers 
under  their  care.  Their  one  and  only  idea 
seemed  to  be  that,  as  the  patients  were  insane, 
anything  was  good  enough  for  them,  and  it 
mattered  not  how  rudely  or  unkindly  they 
were  addressed. 

It  was  the  old,  old  story  of  the  tyranny  of 
the  strong,  and  I  was  curiously  interested  to 
observe  how  niu'ses  of  common  origin  seem 
positively  to  delight  in  annoying  and  goading 
the  unfortimate  ladies  placed  in  their  charge; 
it  proved  to  me  that  the  hatred  of  the  lower 
orders  for  the  aristocracy  is  ineradicable,  for 


MY  OWN  STORY  295 

ever  smouldering,   and  needing  very  little  to 
fan  it  into  a  flame. 

My  maid,  however,  was  kindness  itself,  and 
every  morning  at  seven  o'clock  she  prepared 
me  a  refreshing  cup  of  chocolate,  which  was 
the  only  warm,  comforting  nourishment  I  had 
during  the  whole  day. 

The  doctors  paid  me  regular  visits  twice  a 
day,  and  at  odd  times  whenever  they  deemed 
it  advisable.  At  first  I  was  only  allowed  to 
walk  in  the  grounds  with  a  nurse,  but  I  could 
not  endure  such  a  trial  to  my  patience  and 
intelligence.  I  told  Dr.  Martin  that  I  preferred 
my  maid  as  a  companion,  and  the  kind  man 
permitted  me  to  dispense  with  the  nurse's 
society. 

The  inmate  of  the  room  next  to  mine  was 
a  lady  suffering  from  acute  mania,  and  I  heard 
endless  noises  and  shrieks  which  made  the  long 
hours  hideous.  The  nights  were  terrible;  apart 
from  the  disturbance  near  me,  my  own  sad 
thoughts  prevented  me  from  sleeping,  and  I 
indulged  in  retrospective  reveries.  At  times  I 
was  a  girl  with  papa,  happy  and  free,  inhaling 
the  pure  icy  mountain  air,  and  tracking  the 
chamois.  Again  I  was  at  the  Hofburg,  sur- 
rounded by  splendour  and  gaiety;  I  could  see 


296  MY  OWN  STORY 

the  shimmer  of  costly  fabrics,  and  the  glitter  of 
jewels;  I  listened  to  voluptuous  music;  I  was 
sought  after  and  admired,  and  I  held  pride 
of  place  as  an  Archduchess  of  the  House  of 
Habsburg. 

Then  the  scene  changed  to  Dresden.  I  was 
again  the  young  bride  in  love  with  love  and  life, 
the  happy  mother,  the  idolised  princess;  but  just 
as  I  dwelt  with  happiness,  a  piercing  shriek 
dispelled  the  visions  of  the  past,  and  I  started 
in  renewed  agony  of  mind  as  I  again  realised 
that  now  I  was  a  lonely  woman  whose  only 
shelter  was  a  madhouse. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


/  leave  La  Maiterie — A  reconciliation  with  my  parents — 
Birth  of  Monica — The  chalet  at  Wartegg — /  interview 
the  Socialist  leaders — The  Red  Queen — Death  of  my 
father-in-law;  his  remorse — Hope  deferred — The  ec- 
centricities of  the  Habshurgs  —  The  Story  of  John 
Orth — "/  will  return.'' 


397 


CHAPTER   XVIII 


I  REMAINED  at  La  Maiterie  until  March  i, 
1903,  when  I  wrote  to  papa  telling  him  how 
much  I  had  endured  and  suffered  since  I  left 
Salzburg,  and  begging  him  to  relent  and  show  me 
some  kindness.  My  letter  touched  him;  perhaps 
he  understood  at  last  what  I  had  gone  through, 
and  his  affection  for  me  overcame  his  disapproval 
of  the  course  I  had  adopted.  I  was  accordingly- 
informed  that  I  could  go  to  Lindau  and  stay 
there  as  long  as  I  liked. 

I  was  deeply  touched  and  grateful  for  papa's 
kindness,  and  lost  no  time  in  leaving  the  Maison 
de  Sante.  When  I  arrived  at  Lindau,  I  found 
mamma  awaiting  me.  It  was  a  painful  meeting 
for  us,  and  she  remained  only  a  few  days, 
returning  later  when  Monica  was  born  on  May  4, 
1903.  I  was  dreadfully  ill,  for  inexorable  Nature 
demanded  from  me  the  toll  I  had  levied  on  my 
constitution  and  nervous  system.  I  also  endtired 
that  bitterness  which  only  the  heart  knows,  and 

I  wondered  if,  in  the  days  to  come,  my  child 

299 


300  MY  OWN  STORY 

would  still  love  me  when  she  heard  how  much 
the  world  had  condemned  her  mother.  Poor 
little  princess!  There  was  no  father  to  kiss 
and  fondle  her,  like  the  other  babies ;  no  beautiful 
christening  robes  of  lace,  and  no  elaborate 
ceremonial  for  IMonica.  There  was  just  the 
mother  who  idolised  her,  but  who  dreaded  the 
future,  for  the  joy  of  undisputed  possession 
was  clouded  with  the  fear  of  possible  separation. 

I  stayed  at  Lindau  for  six  weeks,  and  then  I 
took  my  baby  to  the  Chateau  de  Ronno  e 
Amplepuis,  which  I  had  rented  from  the  Com- 
tesse  de  St.  Victor.  It  was  a  tumble-down  old 
house,  infested  with  rats  and  mice,  and  after 
remaining  there  for  five  months  I  went  to  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  where  I  lived  until  June,  1904. 

Monica  was  the  sweetest  child  in  the  world; 
beautiful  and  extraordinarily  precocious.  She 
seemed  to  notice  everything  that  went  on,  and 
the  dear  little  soul  lavished  all  her  affection  on 
me.  Gradually  I  seemed  recalled  to  life,  and 
with  renewed  interests  came  renewed  hopes. 
My  temperament  was  always  buoyant,  and  I 
imagined  that  Frederick -August  would  take 
some  step  which  would  change  everything  and 
restore  me  to  my  old  position. 

In  June,  1904,  the  Duke  of  Parma  lent  me  a 


Photo  by  Paul  Labhart,  Rorschach. 


MONICA 
SEPTEMBER,    1905 


301 


MY  OWN  STORY  303 

chalet  in  the  park  at  Wartegg,  and  there  both 
my  parents  visited  me,  and  I  resimied  to  som.6 
extent  my  affectionate  relations  with  papa,  who 
was  philosophic  enough  to  believe  in  the  truth 
of  the  words,  "Tout  comprendre,  c 'est  tout 
pardonner."  I  was  almost  happy  in  those  days, 
and  as  papa  very  generously  provided  me  with 
horses,  carriages,  and  servants,  all  that  I  had  to 
pay  was  household  expenses. 

I  had  a  very  curious  experience  at  Wartegg, 
which  offered  me  an  opportunity  for  revenge  of 
which  I  did  not  avail  myself. 

One  day  I  was  told  that  two  men  wished  to 
see  me  on  urgent  and  private  business.  When 
I  received  them,  they  informed  me  that  they  were 
the  leaders  of  the  Socialist  Party  in  Saxony, 
and  that  their  errand  might  lead  to  important 
results  if  I  cared  to  consider  their  proposals. 
I  was  naturally  interested,  and  begged  them 
to  enlighten  me. 

"Imperial  Highness,"  said  the  man  who 
appeared  to  be  the  chief  person  in  authority, 
"we  have  come  to  ask  you  to  retiu*n  to  Dresden 
under  our  protection.  We  have,  I  can  truthfully 
assure  you,  the  power  to  overthrow  the  existing 
regime.  Our  plans  were  carefully  laid  long 
ago,  and  the  moment  is  ripe  for  their  execution. 


304  MY  OWN  STORY 

Come  back  with  us,  avenge  yourself  on  your 
enemies,  and  you  will  become  the  Red  Queen 
of  Saxony,  owning  the  allegiance  of  the  Saxon 
populace,  who  have  always  been  faithful  and 
devoted  to  you.  We  know  the  weak  points  of 
the  Constitution,  and  we  are  assured  that  you, 
and  you  alone,  really  understand  the  needs  of 
the  people.  We  will  give  you  back  your  children, 
and  you  shall  be  happy  once  more.  Do  not 
refuse,"  urged  the  man,  who  seemed  profoundly 
moved;  "obey  the  dictates  of  your  heart,  and 
do  not  suffer  any  fiulher  martyrdom  at  the  hands 
of  Von  Metzsch.  Return,  'Our  Louisa';  thou- 
sands of  arms  are  already  outstretched  in  wel- 
come; thousands  of  voices  are  ready  to  acclaim 
you.  Come  back  and  carry  out  those  reforms 
which  we  know  you  have  always  favoured. 
Destroy  the  power  of  the  priests,  and  cleanse 
the  Court  of  the  plague  of  parasites  and  liars, 
who  have  sought  to  destroy  you." 

I  was  deeply  affected,  and  for  one  moment  I 
allowed  myself  to  imagine  the  luxury  of  revenge ; 
but  my  better  self  triumphed,  and  I  said  very 
quietly  and  decidedly:  "I  thank  you  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  for  your  offer,  but  I  cannot 
accept  it.  True,  I  have  suffered  unjustly,  but 
if  I  bought  revenge,  consider  the  price  I  should 


MY  OWN  STORY  305 

have  to  pay.  It  would  be  far  too  costly,  as  it 
would  entail  the  degradation  of  my  husband,  and 
I  will  never  be  a  party  to  injuring  him.  He  has 
been  forced  to  act  against  his  inclinations,  and 
I  understand  and  do  not  blame  him.  The 
authors  of  my  downfall  are  the  King  and  Von 
Metzsch.  The  King  will  soon  render  his  account 
to  a  Higher  Power,  who  will  mete  out  his  judg- 
ment. I  therefore  leave  my  father-in-law  to 
God.  Baron  von  Metzsch  will  live  on  in  fancied 
security,  but  the  day  will  come  when  my  injuries 
will  cry  out  against  him.  My  friends,  I  await 
that  day  in  patience  and — I  am  content  to  wait." 

The  Socialists  seemed  much  impressed,  but 
they  could  not  conceal  their  disappointment 
at  my  non-compliance  with  their  wishes.  The 
episode  showed  me  how  much  the  people  loved 
me,  and  it  was  a  source  of  the  greatest  consola- 
tion to  my  heart. 

On  October  15,  1904,  my  father-in-law  died, 
after  much  suffering.  He  was  unable  to  lie  down 
owing  to  dreadful  fits  of  suffocation,  and  I  am 
told  it  was  pitiable  to  see  the  fanatical  old  man 
gasping  for  breath  in  his  chair.  When  he  felt 
that  his  hour  had  come  he  asked  to  see  me,  and 
said  he  could  not  die  peacefully  unless  I  were 
brought  to  him.    Von  Metzsch  was  repeatedly 


3o6  MY  OWN  STORY 

urged  by  the  dying  monarch  to  send  for  me, 
but,  although  he  promised  to  do  so,  he  never 
intended  that  we  should  meet  this  side  of  the 
grave. 

The  King  asked  my  husband  to  arrange  mat- 
ters, but  Frederick -August  was  told  that  his 
father  was  the  victim  of  delusions,  and  that  when 
he  was  in  complete  possession  of  his  faculties 
my  name  was  never  mentioned  by  him.  By 
those  hours  of  torturing  remorse  I  was  avenged 
for  the  years  of  suffering  my  father-in-law 
inflicted  on  me,  and  I  have  learned  to  pardon 
some  things  due  to  his  bigoted  fanaticism  which 
extinguished  his  better  nature. 

I  sent  a  wreath  inscribed  "Louisa"  on  the 
day  before  his  funeral,  and  when  it  was  brought 
into  the  death-chamber,  some  of  the  zealous 
Court  officials  decided  that  it  had  better  be 
removed.  The  matter  was  mentioned  to  my 
husband,  and  he  was  asked  if  he  wished  the 
wreath  returned  to  me. 

' '  Certainly  not , "  said  Frederick- August .  ' '  Let 
the  wreath  remain  where  it  is,"  and  for  those 
kindly  w^ords  I  have  often  inwardly  thanked 
him. 

I  had  always  hoped,  and  so  did  my  family, 
that    directly    my    husband    became    King    of 


MY  OWN  STORY  307 

Saxony,  he  would  free  himself  from  the  influence 
of  his  entourage,  and  that  better  days  would  be 
in  store  for  me.  Alas !  when  a  pliant  nature  is 
dominated  by  unscrupulous  men,  it  has  little 
or  no  chance  of  escaping  from  their  toils. 
Although  Frederick-August  was  now  a  King 
and  could  do  all,  he  did  not  at  this  crisis  dare 
all,  and  things  remained  as  before. 

I  was  bitterly  disappointed,  and  I  saw  that  I 
must  face  the  future  alone,  so  as  I  have  always 
been  prompt  to  act,  I  decided  to  make  a  home 
for  myself  and  Monica  in  Italy. 


Leopold's  marriage  had  not  been  a  success,  for, 
like  most  of  the  members  of  my  house,  he  seems 
to  be  very  unlucky  in  love;  indeed,  in  the  ordi- 
nary affairs  of  life  our  family  rarely  does  any- 
thing in  the  accepted  way,  and  we  afford  a 
fascinating  study  for  those  interested  in  heredity. 
It  has  always  been  usual  to  judge  us  Habsburgs 
as  perfectly  normal  beings,  who  do  astounding 
things  solely  because  it  pleases  us;  and  our 
mania  for  self-effacement  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
curious  of  our  idiosyncrasies.  It  seems  to  me 
that,  at  certain  crises  in  our  lives,  we  are  seized 
by  abnormal  and  slumbering  forces  which  tern- 


3o8  MY  OWN  STORY 

porarily  create  neurotic  disturbances,  under  the 
influence  of  which  we  commit  acts  of  impulse 
that  frequently  have  lifelong  consequences.  Our 
position  does  not  allow  us  to  have  any  really 
intimate  friends  who  could  persuade  or  influence 
us  in  a  nerve  storm,  and  the  result  is  that  a 
Habsburg  generally  seeks  counsel  from  a  Habs- 
burg,  a  course  which  seldom  makes  for  wise 
decisions. 

As  I  have  often  speculated  as  to  the  cause  of 
those  "nerve  storms"  which  plunge  us  into 
unhappiness  and  disaster,  I  feel  I  cannot  do 
better  than  quote  some  observations  communi- 
cated to  a  friend  of  mine  by  that  distinguished 
young  physician,  Dr.  W.  Brown  Thomson  of 
London. 

"There  can  be  no  doubt  that  from  Ferdinand 
I.  of  Austria,  the  son  of  a  vicious  father  and  an 
insane  mother,  Joanna  the  Mad,  the  House  of 
Habsburg  derives  its  psychoneurosis.  Its  insan- 
ity comes  from  the  Spanish  connection,  and  the 
symptoms  were  aggravated  by  marriages  with 
the  Bourbons,  which  brought  in  their  train  all 
the  defects  of  character  which  marked  that 
unstable  though  brilliant  family. 

"Up  to  the  time  of  Maria-Theresa,  occasional 
attempts  seem  to  have  been  made  to  counteract 


MY  OWN  STORY  309 

the  deleterious  influences  of  the  Spanish  connec- 
tion. A  wife  was  chosen  for  the  Emperor 
Charles  from  the  healthy  House  of  Bavaria,  and 
in  the  offspring  of  this  union,  nine  in  number, 
there  was  no  trace  of  the  taint.  This  does  not 
prove,  however,  that  it  was  permanently  eradi- 
cated; it  was  simply  latent  for  the  time  being, 
as  the  normal  element  was  powerful  enough  to 
hold  the  abnormal  in  check.  The  stock  of  this 
period  bade  fair  to  eliminate  the  diathesis,  and 
might  have  done  so  had  not  the  family  tree  been 
once  more  sapped  by  the  marriage  of  Ferdinand 
III.  with  a  princess  of  Spain,  who  was  herself 
a  normal  individual,  though  the  immxcdiate 
result  of  the  union  was  once  more  to  fortify  the 
attenuated  taint.  It  is  an  axiom  in  heredity 
that  the  reappearance  of  any  family  taint  among 
its  descendants  is  in  some  degree  proportionate 
to  the  frequency  with  which  it  has  occurred 
among  their  ancestors.  Bearing  this  in  mind,  it 
is  not  surprising  to  find  a  'throw-back'  in  the 
offspring;  and  of  the  two  children  bom  of  the 
marriage  in  question,  the  species  was  perpetuated 
by  Leopold,  who,  to  say  the  least,  was  a  man 
of  weak  constitution  and  eccentric  disposition. 
His  marriage  with  Magdalene-Therdse  was  in 
every  v/ay  commendable,  since  her  lineage  bore 


3IO  MY  OWN  STORY 

no  trace  of  the  taint  which  characterised  that  of 
the  Habsburgs.  This  augiired  well  for  the  future, 
and  one  might  without  fear  of  contradiction 
regard  this  marriage  as  the  dawning  of  a  new 
era,  and  the  consolidating  of  the  hopes  of  the 
Habsburgs. 

"In  the  next  generation  there  are  evidences  of 
the  addition  of  further  mental  ballast,  as  the 
result  of  the  marriage  of  the  Emperor  Charles 
VI.  of  Austria  with  Elizabeth  of  Brunswick, 
w^hich  progenated  that  famous  Empress  of 
Austria — Maria-Theresa — in  whose  person,  and 
under  whose  sway,  the  Habsburgs  reached  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  their  fame. 

"Originally  a  powerful  and  healthy  stock, 
we  have  witnessed  the  contamination  of  the 
Habsburgs  by  the  psychoneurosis  of  the  Spanish 
royal  family,  which  in  its  turn  was  counteracted 
by  careful  selection  culminating  in  the  birth  of 
the  brilliant  Maria-Theresa,  at  which  stage  the 
Habsburg  lineage  woiild  seem  to  have  cleared 
itself  of  the  taint  which  was  so  conspicuous  in 
their  ancestors.  There  can  only  be  one  explana- 
tion of  this  improvement,  nam^ely  that  it  was  the 
result  of  these  happily-chosen  alliances. 

"The  second  epoch  of  the  Austrian  Habsburgs 


MY  OWN  STORY  311 

shows  the  lamentable  results  of  inbred  marriages 
amongst  tainted  stock;  and  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  the  offspring  in  the  later 
generations  appear  in  an  unfavourable  light. 
No  greater  handicap  for  the  future  of  any 
generation  can  be  imagined  than  to  start  life 
with  an  inheritance  of  neurosis  or  psychoneurosis 
from  both  parents  and  their  collaterals.  We 
have  here  a  specific  and  defined  inheritance 
displaying  itself  in  insanity  and  epilepsy;  or  in 
the  less-defined  but  nevertheless  important  series 
of  manifestations  grouped  imder  the  heading 
of  neurasthenia,  which  comprise  insufficient  will- 
power, nervous  prostration,  lack  of  mental 
concentration,  self-effacement,  hatred  of  sur- 
roundings, and  an  uncontrollable  desire  to  shun 
the  society  of  one's  kind.  There  are,  in  addition, 
curious  digressions  of  conduct,  and  variations  of 
character,  which  are  usually  almost  inexplicable, 
and  seem  to  be  automatically  exercised.  Yet  at 
times  these  people  would  pass  muster  in  the 
category  of  normal  beings.  Again,  the  pre- 
disposition may  change  in  expression  in  the  same 
generation  as  well  as  in  separate  generations. 
Thus  we  find  insanity  in  the  one  generation 
followed  by  epilepsy,  alcoholism,  and  libertinism 
in  another. 


312  MY  OWN  STORY 

"The  brain  responds  instinctively  by  feeling* 
and  by  reflex  actions,  to  almost  every  influence 
outside  it,  and  in  these  responses  no  two  brains 
act  alike.  The  equipment  of  the  brain  may  work 
harmoniously  for  years,  but  under  the  strain  of 
some  constitutional  crisis,  the  mental  springs, 
strained  beyond  the  limits  of  endurance,  snap— 
and  the  inherited  traits  which  have  lain  dormant 
for  years  will  manifest  themselves  in  one  or  other 
of  the  above  ways.  It  is  not  the  inherent  desire 
to  commit  flagrant  indiscretions,  but  an  over- 
mastering wish  to  separate  themselves  from  their 
surroundings  that  goads  them  to  perform  rash 
deeds,  and  all  these  phenomena  are  the  result  of 
an  inherited  neurosis  in  a  constitution  whose 
dynamical  power  is  unstable  and  eccentric 

' '  With  a  heritage  like  that  of  the  Habsburgs  w^e 
can  only  expect  disaster  to  follow  disaster,  and 
the  seed  sown  in  the  varied  strains  of  ancestry  to 
manifest  itself  in  the  offspring.  The  House  of 
Habsburg  exemplifies  the  influence  of  that  great 
law  of  heredity  which  is  such  an  important  factor 
in  moulding  the  character  of  rulers,  and  in 
directing  the  destinies  of  their  countries;  and 
when  we  examine  each  link  of  the  genealogical 
chain,  and  observe  the  appreciation  or  deprecia- 
tion of  the  offspring  as  the  resiilt  of  their  union 


MY  OWN  STORY  313 

with  the  normal  or  with  unhealthy  families,  we 
can  deal  with  the  problem  on  a  scientific  basis. 
It  is  only  by  taking  one  generation  in  conjunc- 
tion with  another,  correlating  and  interpreting 
all  the  psychological  phenomena,  and  extend- 
ing our  field  of  operations  back  into  the  ninth 
and  tenth  generations  that  we  are  able  to 
reach  some  tangible  and  pertinent  reason  to 
account  for  the  perversions  of  character  in  the 
Habsburgs. 

"They  are  extraordinary  people,  brilliant, 
gifted,  fascinating,  and  reckless,  but  their  sins 
and  indiscretions  ai'e  not  the  result  of  a  love 
of  either;  they  are  generally  brought  about  by 
environment  and  the  dire  influence  of  suggestion, 
and,  in  my  opinion,  the  Habsburgs  are  only  to  be 
looked  upon  as  the  unhappy  and  (in  their  calmer 
moments)  the  unwilling  victims  of  heredity." 

A  most  mysterious  and  interesting  member  of 
my  father  's  family  is  my  Uncle  John,  who  is 
known  to  the  world  as  "John  Orth."  I  say  is, 
because  I  believe  he  is  still  alive  and  is  only 
waiting  for  the  Emperor's  death  to  return  to 
Austria. 

My  Uncle  John  was  much  younger  than  papa, 
short  in  stature,  with  brown  hair  and  blue  eyes, 
and  most  fascinating.    Like  papa,  he  did  every- 


314  MY  OWN  STORY 

thing  he  attempted  well  and  thoroughly ;  he  was 
also  like  papa  a  gifted  musician  and  highly 
accomplished.  He  often  visited  us  at  Salzburg, 
and  we  were  great  friends;  in  fact  he  wanted 
to  get  permission  from  the  Vatican  to  marry 
me,  as  he  considered  I  was  the  ideal  mate  for 
a  man  of  his  temperament;  but  although  the 
Church  sometimes  sanctions  a  union  between 
uncle  and  niece,  I  could  never  have  countenanced 
such  a  thing,  for  I  only  looked  upon  Uncle  John 
as  a  very  delightful  relation  who  possessed 
papa's  perfect  understanding  of  my  character. 

Many  and  varied  have  been  the  conjectures 
put  forward  to  account  for  the  strange  disappear- 
ance of  the  Archduke.  It  has  been  said  that 
he  was  implicated  in  the  tragedy  of  Aleyerling, 
and  in  consequence  renounced  his  titles  and 
estates,  and  left  his  native  land  for  ever.  This 
is  absolutely  untrue.  The  real  reason  which 
caused  "John  Orth"  to  leave  Vienna  was 
wounded  pride  arising  from  a  stubborn  unyield- 
ing will,  which  would  not  brook  any  contradic- 
tion. This  statement  coming  from  me,  his 
niece,  will  probably  destroy  some  of  the  mystery 
and  romance  of  the  story,  but  is  nevertheless 
accurate. 

My  uncle  held  an  important  position  in  the 


MY  OWN  STORY  315 

Austrian  army.  The  late  Field- Marshal  von 
IXIoltke  considered  him  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished strategists  in  Europe,  and  he  controlled 
the  military  forces  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 
He  was  most  progressive  in  his  ideas,  tried  to 
reorganise  the  army,  and  obtained  the  Emper- 
or's permission  to  draw  up  a  scheme  for  recon- 
struction. This  scheme  was  approved  of,  and 
he  was  then  asked  to  write  a  kind  of  "manifesto " 
incorporating  the  proposed  principal  reforms. 
The  manifesto  was  sent  to  all  the  generals  and 
officers,  but  my  uncle  had  reckoned  without  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  the  Archduke  Albrecht, 
who  was  one  of  the  veterans  of  '66.  He  was 
deeply  offended,  and  made  such  an  uproar  that 
the  Emperor,  who  hates  any  kind  of  disturbance, 
sent  for  John  and  told  him  he  must  submit  all 
plans  to  the  Archdiike  Albrecht.  Uncle  John, 
beside  himself  with  rage  and  mortification,  at 
once  issued  an  appeal  to  the  army  asking  it  to 
judge  between  the  respective  merits  of  Albrecht 
and  himself,  and  this  daring  step  so  enraged 
the  Emperor  that  he  sent  for  John  and  told 
him  he  must  apologise  immediately  to  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief. 

There  was  a  violent  and  heated  discussion 
between  the  rebellious  Archduke  and  Francis- 


3i6  MY  OWN  STORY 

Joseph.  Uncle  John  said  in  his  bold  way  that 
he  wotild  leave  the  army  and  the  Court  rather 
than  be  dictated  to,  and  he  concluded  by 
declaring  that  he  did  not  care  in  the  least 
whether  he  was  a  member  of  the  Imperial 
House.  A  storm  followed  this  rank  apostacy, 
and  my  uncle,  in  a  fit  of  ungovernable  rage, 
tore  off  his  Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece  and  flung 
it  at  the  Emperor. 

After  this  unpardonable  insult,  the  Archduke 
wrote  to  the  Emperor  saying  that  he  was  about 
to  leave  Austria  for  ever,  and  that  he  renounced 
all  his  titles  and  dignities,  and  desired  to  be 
known  henceforth  as  "John  Orth."  Francis- 
Joseph  promptly  replied  that  he  was  free  to 
adopt  any  name  he  pleased,  but  that,  once  he 
had  quitted  Austria,  he  would  be  immediately 
arrested  as  a  renegade  if  ever  he  attempted  to 
re-cross  the  frontier. 

Uncle  John  at  once  went  to  see  grandmamma, 
who  lived  near  Gmunden,  but  he  had  not  the 
courage  to  say  that  he  was  leaving,  perhaps  for 
ever,  so  he  wrote  her  a  letter  that  was  after- 
wards given  to  her  in  which  he  told  her  all  that 
had  occurred.  He  then  came  to  Salzburg,  and 
we  listened  with  excited  sympathy  to  his  account 
of  his  wrongs,  and  were  greatly  interested  in 


MY  OWN  STORY  317 

his  plans  for  the  future.  "John  Orth"  was 
emphatic  in  his  declaration  never  again  to  lead 
a  restricted  life,  as  he  wished  to  be  true  to  him- 
self. He  told  us  he  had  decided  to  become  a 
captain  in  the  merchant  service,  and  should  at 
once  study  for  his  master's  certificate.  Leopold 
and  I  followed  him  out  of  the  room,  as  we  hoped 
he  would  say  something  more  to  us,  and  we 
were  not  disappointed. 

My  uncle  looked  at  us  tenderly,  for  we  were 
on  the  verge  of  tears  at  the  idea  of  losing  our 
kind  and  brilliant  kinsman,  and  he  then  said 
with  calm  gravity:  "I  am  about  to  disappear, 
my  dear  children,  and  I  shall  do  so  in  such  a 
manner  that  no  one  will  ever  find  me.  When 
the  Emperor  is  dead,  I  will  return,  for  then 
Austria  will  require  my  services. 

"I  wish,  Louisa  and  Leopold,  that  you  could 
come  with  me  for  we  three  should  lead  the  life 
best  suited  to  us.  It  cannot  be,  however,  and 
our  ways  must  part  here.  You  are  both,  like 
myself,  individualities,  and  like  me,  you  will 
work  out  your  destinies.  But  we  shall  become 
forces  that  will  eventually  be  felt.  How  strange 
it  is,"  he  continued,  as  though  deep  in  thought, 
"that  our  house,  hampered  and  harassed  by 
convention  and  tradition,  should  produce  such 


3i8  MY  OWN  STORY 

offshoots'  It  must  be  the  revolt  of  the  soul 
against  the  imprisoning  bands  of  our  world. 
Never,  never,  believe  that  I  am  dead,  for  I  will 
return  one  day,  and  we  shall  meet  again  and  talk 
of  this:' 

These  were  the  last  words  I  heard  my  uncle 
speak.  He  left  Salzburg,  and  some  time  after- 
wards we  heard  of  his  marriage  and  purchase 
of  the  sailing-vessel  Margherita.  The  crew 
were  all  Croats  and  Italians,  especially  selected 
as  trustw^orthy,  capable  men,  and  my  uncle 
navigated  the  vessel  himself  by  virtue  of  his 
master's  certificate. 

He  arrived  at  La  Plata,  and  then,  after  a  stay 
of  some  weeks,  he  sailed  for  Valparaiso.  Before 
leaving  La  Plata  he  shipped  an  entirely  new 
crew,  and  from  that  day  "John  Orth,"  his  ship, 
and  all  on  board  have  disappeared  completely 
from  human  ken.  The  Margherita  never 
reached  Valparaiso,  and  if  ever  she  entered 
another  port  it  was  under  an  altered  name. 

The  chief  officer  of  the  vessel  came  to  Salzburg 
expressly  to  see  papa,  and  this  man  told  me 
he  was  positive  John  Orth  was  alive,  and  had 
never  gone  to  Valparaiso.  He  described  how, 
as  the  old  crew  stood  watching  the  Margherita 
disappear  into  the  evening  mists,   the  person 


MY  OWN  STORY  319 

who  stood  on  the  bridge,  enveloped  in  a  great- 
coat, and  muffled  to  the  eyes,  was  not  John 
Orth,  but  some  one  impersonating  him.  The 
crew  in  question  returned  to  Trieste,  and  one 
and  all  believed  the  evidence  of  their  own  eyes 
at  La  Plata,  and  refused  to  put  any  credence 
in  the  report  that  their  captain  had  been 
drowned  at  sea. 

We  heard  nothing  more  of  him,  but  I  am  told 
that  a  M.  Renaux,  who  had  formerly  lived  in  the 
Argentine  Republic,  declared  that  after  he  saw 
John  Orth  at  La  Plata  he  met  him  in  Buenos 
Ayres,  and  again  at  Rio  Quarto.  M.  Renaux 
returned  to  France  in  1893,  but  he  is  positive 
my  uncle  is  still  alive.  I,  too,  feel  convinced 
that  he  has  not  found  a  resting-place  in  the 
swaying  deeps  of  the  ocean,  and  his  words,  "7 
will  return,'"  are  ever  in  my  mind. 

Various  impostors  have  at  times  claimed  to  be 
the  missing  Archduke,  and  grandmamma  sent 
large  sums  of  money  to  one  of  them.  She 
showed  papa  letters  in  which  the  handwriting 
was  apparently  that  of  Uncle  John,  but  when  the 
police  were  communicated  with,  they  eventually 
arrested  the  man,  who  proved  to  be  a  dan- 
gerous criminal  "wanted"  for  years! 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  Archduke  had 


320  MY  OWN  STORY 

money  in  the  Swiss  banks,  but  the  assertion  is 
inaccurate.  All  his  securities  were  deposited 
with  Paris,  Vienna,  and  London  houses.  He 
never  withdrew  any  money,  and  the  interest 
must  now  amoimt  to  a  large  sum.  Papa  was 
convinced  to  the  day  of  his  death  that  his  brother 
was  alive  and,  as  time  proves  all  things,  the 
Emperor's  death  will  perhaps  solve  the  mystery, 
for  Austria  may  then  require  the  services  of 
John  Orth  in  the  international  complications 
which  will  no  doubt  follow. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


The  Emperor  Francis-Joseph — His  power  in  family 
affairs — The  tragedy  of  Meyerling — What  I  know 
about  it — The  body  under  the  cover — The  story  of 
Isabella  of  Parma — "  Three  hours,  three  days,  three 
years^' — I  resolve  on  a  coup  de  tete — Once  again  in 
Dresden — /  am  arrested  outside  the  palace — The 
attitude  of  the  people — /  leave  for  Leipzig — A  won- 
derful reception — /  learn  the  value  of  disinterested 
affection. 


sax 


CHAPTER  XIX 


'T'HE  House  of  Habsburg  at  the  present  time 
is,  perhaps,  the  most  iminteresting  royal 
family  in  Europe  as,  during  the  last  twenty 
years,  nearly  all  its  striking  personalities  have 
either  gone  into  exile  or  have  died. 

The  Emperor  Francis-Joseph  has  absolute 
power  over  the  members  of  his  house;  he  can, 
at  will,  strip  them  of  their  possessions,  deprive 
them  of  their  titles,  and  send  them  penniless 
into  the  world.  His  ideas  of  family  government 
are  mediaeval,  and  he  is  quite  narrow  in  his 
judgment  of  relatives  who  wish  to  leave  the 
tradition-paved  ways  of  Court.  When  he  heard 
of  my  flight,  he  said  to  papa: 

"Louisa  is  dead,  I  do  not  care  to  hear  her 
name." 

Francis- Joseph  is  not,  to  my  mind,  a  man 

of  strong  individuality;  he  is  weak-willed,  and 

has  always  been  so.     He  shirks  responsibility, 

and  instead  of  helping  any  one  in  distress,  he 

323 


324  MY  OWN  STORY 

shelters  himself  behind  the  Throne,  and  acts  as 
a  monarch  instead  of  a  man. 

He  has  certainly  experienced  crushing 
domestic  troubles,  but  his  wonderful  constitu- 
tion has  helped  him  to  support  anxieties  which 
would  have  killed  any  ordinary  person.  The 
terrible  tragedy  of  Meyerling,  however,  was 
almost  more  than  he  could  bear.  This  myste- 
rious affair  is  the  darkest  story  in  the  annals 
of  the  Habsburgs,  and  several  of  its  details 
have  been  kept  secret  even  from  some  members 
of  the  Imperial  family.  What  I  know  was  told 
me  by  papa,  who  was  one  of  the  few  people 
aware  of  what  really  happened  on  that  ghastly 
night. 

On  January  30,  1889,  we  had  just  returned 
from  skating,  and  found  every  one  at  the  palace 
in  a  state  of  great  excitement  on  account  of 
a  telegram  which  awaited  papa,  and  which 
read  as  follows : 

"Rudolph  has  been  killed." 

Naturally  we  were  all  dreadfully  distressed 
at  the  news,  and  the  first  telegram  was  speedily 
followed  by  another,  which  stated : 

"The  Crown  Prince  has  killed  himself." 

Papa  immediately  left  for  Vienna,  and  when 
he  returned,  after  an  absence  of  some  days,  he 


MY  OWN  STORY  325 

confided  to  me  that  he  had  spoken  to  Rudolph's 
valet,  who  brought  his  master's  body  back  to 
Vienna,  and  the  man  gave  him  some  curious 
details  of  the  tragedy. 

It  appeared  that  on  the  fatal  evening  the 
hunting  party  had  a  very  uproarious  dinner, 
and  drank  heavily.  The  valet  heard  a  great 
deal  of  noise,  but  did  not  take  much  notice, 
until  dreadful  moans  on  the  staircase  caused 
him  to  open  his  door,  and  he  saw,  with  inde- 
scribable horror,  the  bleeding  form  of  the  Crown 
Prince  being  carried  upstairs.  When  the  bearers 
of  the  body  saw  the  valet,  they  peremptorily 
ordered  him  to  go  back  to  his  room  and  wait 
until  they  sent  for  him.  He  did  so,  and  after 
a  time  he  was  taken  to  the  unfortunate  Crown 
Prince,  who  lingered  for  hours  in  an  unconscious 
state. 

Papa  said  that  when  he  arrived  at  Vienna, 
Rudolph  had  been  dead  barely  eight  hours. 
He  went  into  the  room  at  the  Hofburg  where 
the  body  lay,  and  was  horrified  to  see  that  the 
skull  was  smashed  in,  and  that  pieces  of  broken 
bottle-glass  protruded  from  it.  The  face  was 
quite  unrecognisable,  and  two  fingers  of  the 
right  hand  had  been  cut  off.  When  the  body 
was  prepared  for  the  lying-in-State,   the  face 


326  MY  OWN  STORY 

and  head  were  completely  covered  with  a  wax 
mask  in  order  to  prevent  people  from  seeing  the 
awful  disfigurement,  and  thus  realising  what  a 
terrible  tragedy  had  occurred. 

The  Emperor,  who  was  told  as  gently  as  pos- 
sible about  the  injuries  to  his  son,  summoned 
a  secret  conclave  at  which  the  whole  truth  of  the 
night's  events  was  disclosed,  and  none  but  those 
present  at  that  meeting  ever  knew  what  had 
really  happened. 

A  very  gruesome  story  was  told  me  by  a 
forester  who  had  been  a  gamekeeper  at  Meyer- 
ling.  This  man  once  came  to  the  Imperial 
estates  near  Salzburg,  to  superintend  the  plant- 
ing of  some  trees  when  we  were  at  the  shooting- 
box.  I  asked  him  what  he  knew  about  the  death 
of  the  Crown  Prince,  and  his  story  certainly 
bore  all  the  impress  of  truth. 

He  said  that  he  had  been  ordered,  on  the 
night  of  the  tragedy,  to  come  to  the  lodge  at 
half -past  eight  the  next  morning.  When  he  ar- 
rived, he  was  very  much  surprised  at  the  absolute 
stillness  which  seemed  to  pervade  everywhere; 
and,  bewildered  and  apprehensive,  he  opened 
a  door  of  which  he  possessed  a  duplicate  key, 
and  went  into  the  billiard -room.  Here  all  was 
confusion;    the   tables   and   chairs   were   over- 


MY  OWN  STORY  327 

turned,  broken  glass  was  scattered  on  the 
carpet,  and  the  cover  of  the  billiard-table  lay 
on  the  floor. 

The  gamekeeper  was  not  astonished  at  the 
state  of  the  room,  as  rough  nights  were  the 
accepted  order  of  things  at  Meyerling,  but  some- 
thing odd  about  the  appearance  of  the  fallen 
cover  arrested  his  attention.  He  stooped  to 
pick  it  up,  and,  as  he  did  so,  he  saw  a  foot  pro- 
truding from  under  it;  when  he  lifted  it  he  was 
horrified  to  find  the  nude  body  of  a  dead  woman 
bleeding  from  revolver  wotmds.  The  frightened 
man  rushed  from  the  room  and  cried  for  assist- 
ance, but  no  one  came,  and  the  house  was  as 
still  as  the  tomb.  He  went  upstairs  to  the 
Crown  Prince's  bedroom,  where  he  saw  the 
valet  and  the  dying  man. 

That  was  all  he  would  tell  me  about  this 
most  terrible  affair,  and  the  world  will  never 
know  the  whole  truth.  The  Emperor  was 
asked  by  the  Austrian  people  to  disclose  the 
facts  about  the  fate  of  the  Crown  Prince,  but 
he  absolutely  refused  to  do  so,  and  incurred 
great  unpopularity  in  consequence. 

All  sorts  of  stories  were  current,  but  my 
belief  is  that  certain  disclosures  were  made  to 
Rudolph  in  order  to  prove  that  an  insurmount- 


328  MY  OWN  STORY 

able  barrier  existed  between  Marie  Vetschera 
and  himself,  and  that  any  affection  between 
them,  as  lovers,  was  impossible. 

I  fancy  he  told  her  this  at  Meyerling,  and, 
perhaps,  over-excited  with  champagne  and  half- 
maddened  by  the  horrible  thing  revealed  to  her, 
the  unfortunate  woman  attacked  Rudolph  with 
a  bottle  and  dealt  him  some  murderous  blows 
on  his  head  and  face.  She  was  then,  in  all  pro- 
bability, shot  down  when  the  other  members 
of  the  party  realised  what  had  happened. 

However,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  exact 
truth  will  never  be  known.  "John  Orth "  was  in 
the  secret,  but  it  has  been,  on  the  whole,  well 
kept,  and  the  mystery  remains  a  mystery. 


A  most  interesting  Habsburg  story,  which  has 
never  been  published,  concerns  Maria-Theresa's 
son,  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.,  who  married 
Isabella,  daughter  of  Ferdinand,  Duke  of  Parma 
— one  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons — and  if  I  may 
here  digress,  I  should  like  to  tell  it. 

Isabella  was  a  lovely  girl,  and  her  ambitious 
mother,  a  daughter  of  Louis  XV.  of  France, 
naturally  wished  her  to  make  a  brilliant 
marriage.     The  gratification  of  the  Duke  and 


MY  OWN  STORY  329 

Duchess  of  Parma  was  extreme  when  the 
Emperor  Joseph  sent  his  Ambassador  to  ask 
for  Isabella's  hand,  and  her  proud  parents  at 
once  gave  a  willing  assent. 

Unfortunately  for  her  future  happiness,  the 
girl  had  already  bestowed  her  affection  on  a 
young  Spaniard  at  her  father's  Court.  The 
lovers  met  in  secret  and  at  night  enacted  the 
parts  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  from  the  balcony 
of  Isabella's  room. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  surprising  that  the  news 
of  her  proposed  marriage  to  another  threw 
Isabella  into  a  pitiable  state  of  despair.  She 
implored  her  lover  to  fly  with  her  and  marry 
her  as  soon  as  possible,  and  at  last  he  consented, 
although  he  fully  realised  the  danger  and  trouble 
attending  such  a  daring  step. 

Isabella  took  her  maids  into  her  confidence 
and,  needless  to  say,  was  betrayed  bj''  them,  as 
servants  of  a  certain  class  always  abuse  the 
confidence  and  kindness  of  their  employers. 

The  longed-for  evening  at  last  came;  horses 
were  in  readiness  for  the  eloping  couple,  but  the 
anxious  girl  waited  for  her  lover  in  vain.  From 
her  window  she  saw  dark  forms  passing  and 
repassing  amid  the  trees  and  suddenly  a  scream 
broke  the  stillness  of  the  night ;  it  was  followed 


330  MY  OWN  STORY 

by  another  and  fainter  cry,  and  Isabella  could 
bear  no  more;  hardly  knowing  what  she  did  she 
climbed  over  the  balcony,  and  fear  lending  her 
wings,  she  ran  like  a  wild  thing  through  the 
gardens.  Some  one  was  lying  on  the  grass,  and 
her  anguished  gaze  saw  that  it  was  her  sweet- 
heart. He  was  dying,  but  was  just  able  to 
tell  her  that  two  men  had  attacked  and  stabbed 
him.  The  poor  girl  looked  with  unutterable 
love  into  his  fast  glazing  eyes,  and  managed 
to  catch  the  words,  "In  three  .  .  .  you,"  but 
he  expired  before  he  was  able  to  finish  the 
sentence. 

Isabella  fainted  and  was  carried  back  to  the 
palace,  where  she  lay  for  a  long  time  uncon- 
scious. When  she  came  to  herself,  her  one 
prayer  was  that  she  might  die,  and  she  imagined 
that  the  words,  "  In  three  .  .  .  you,"  meant 
that  in  three  hours  she  would  rejoin  her  murdered 
lover. 

Death  did  not  come,  however,  and  the  next 
day  she  was  obliged  to  receive  the  Austrian 
Ambassador.  So  she  made  one  despairing  appeal 
to  her  father. 

"You  force  me  to  do  this,  Sire?"  she  faltered 
through  her  sobs. 

"Yes,"  said  the  Duke,  "I  do:  your  lover  will 


MY  OWN  STORY  331 

trouble  me  no  more,  and  I  can  dispose  of  you 
as  I  wiU." 

After  the  Princess  had  received  the  betrothal 
ring,  she  went  back  to  her  rooms,  hoping  that  in 
three  days  her  sufferings  would  be  terminated, 
but  when  the  third  day  passed,  she  concluded 
that  it  would  be  in  three  weeks  that  she  shoxild 
die. 

The  marriage  was  celebrated  by  proxy,  and 
Isabella  left  Parma  for  Vienna.  Directly  the 
Emperor  saw  his  beautiful  young  wife  he  fell 
desperately  in  love  with  her,  and  she  received 
all  his  protestations  of  affection  with  a  sad 
dignity  which  was  infinitely  appealing. 

When  the  newly-wedded  pair  found  them- 
selves alone  in  their  bridal  chamber,  Isabella 
stood  silently  by  the  window  and  looked  out  into 
the  night;  the  moon  rode  high  in  the  serene 
heavens,  and  no  doubt  she  thought  of  that  other 
night  when  its  rays  had  shown  her  the  face  of 
her  dying  lover.  Her  husband  bent  over  her 
with  passionate  endearments,  and  she  said, 
looking  at  him  with  touching  sweetness: 

"I  will  be  kind,  and  I  will  make  you  a  good 
wife,  but  I  am  doomed  to  die,  either  in  three 
months  or  in  three  years." 

Isabella  was  greatly  beloved  by  all  with  whom 


332  MY  OWN  STORY 

she  came  in  contact,  but  her  health  rapidly 
declined  after  her  marriage,  and  although  the 
birth  of  a  daughter  was  a  source  of  joy  to  the 
Emperor,  the  doctors  were  apprehensive  about 
the  mother's  delicate  constitution.  The  Em- 
press seemed  as  though  she  belonged  to  another 
world,  and  was  always  waiting  to  hold  commune 
with  some  one  invisible;  she  was  highly  strung, 
and  it  is  said  that  once  when  she  went  to  the  per- 
formance of  a  new  opera  by  Gluck,  one  of  the 
scenes  brought  back  so  forcibly  her  own  tragic 
love-story  that  she  fainted,  and  for  some  time  it 
seemed  doubtful  whether  she  would  recover. 

Three  years  passed,  and  when  the  anniversary 
of  her  lover's  death  came  round,  she  seemed 
absolutely  transfigured  with  joy,  and  became 
once  more  a  laughing,  happy  girl.  That  night 
exquisitely  dressed,  radiant  and  charming,  she 
supped  with  the  Emperor  in  their  private  apart- 
ments at  Schonbrunn.  All  at  once,  without  a 
word,  she  rose  from  the  table,  and  made  her 
way  into  the  gardens,  walking  quickly;  just 
as  she  was  about  to  cross  the  parterre,  she 
suddenly  stopped,  stretched  out  her  arms  as  if 
in  welcome,  and  fell  dead. 

The  story  goes  that  the  Empress  looked 
angelically  lovely  and  peaceful  in  her  rose-filled 


Photo  by  Max  Kohler,  Dresden. 

MY   THREE    BOYS:    LEFT  TO    RIGHT.    lURY.    ERNI,    TIA.      MAY.    1909. 


333 


MY  OWN  STORY 


335 


coffin,  and  it  is  said  that  no  one  knew  whence 
the  flowers  came.  The  Emperor  was  inconsola- 
ble at  her  loss;  but,  as  the  child  soon  followed 
its  mother,  he  married  again  for  reasons  of 
State.  That  marriage,  also,  was  celebrated  by 
proxy,  but  Joseph  II.  never  lived  with  his 
second  wife,  whose  neck  and  arms  were  covered 
with  spots  due  to  a  skin  disease,  and  he  was 
wont  to  say  that  no  other  woman  existed  who 
could  compare  with  sweet  Isabella  of  Parma. 


I  fear  I  have  digressed  widely  by  recounting 
so  much  gossip  about  the  Habsburgs,  and  I 
must  now  proceed  with  my  own  story. 

In  December,  1904,  I  took  a  villa  at  San 
Domenico  on  the  Fiesolean  Hills,  as  I  thought 
the  air  and  situation  would  prove  beneficial  to 
delicate  little  Monica.  I  was  obsessed  with  a 
desire  to  see  my  children  again ;  they  were  never 
out  of  my  thoughts,  and  at  last  I  felt  I  could 
endure  the  separation  no  longer.  I  saw  plainly 
that  any  appeal  to  Dresden  would  be  dis- 
regarded, so  I  determined  to  leave  persuasion 
alone  and  make  a  coup  de  tete  instead. 

I  therefore  lost  no  time  in  leaving  for  Leipzig, 
where  my  lawyer  lived;  I  drove  to  his  house, 


336  MY  OWN  STORY 

and  told  him  I  wished  him  to  accompany  me 
at  once  to  Dresden,  and  that  I  relied  on  his 
absolute  secrecy  in  the  matter.  We  accordingly 
took  train  to  Dresden;  but,  before  we  left 
Leipzig,  my  "chivalrous"  legal  adviser  tele- 
phoned to  the  Dresden  police  and  informed 
them  of  my  coming. 

We  arrived  at  Dresden  quite  early  in  the 
morning;  it  was  cold  and  foggy,  and  the  sun 
hung  like  a  ball  of  fire  in  the  winter  mists.  As 
I  drove  over  the  old  bridge  my  emotions  almost 
overcame  me.  I  felt  like  a  dreamer  in  a  dream 
city,  until  the  thought  that  I  was  now  near  my 
beloved  children  recalled  me  to  myself. 

I  stopped  the  cab  at  the  shop  of  the  perfumer 
who  used  to  supply  me  when  I  was  Crown 
Princess;  and  as  I  walked  quietly  in,  everybody 
was  busy,  some  assistants  dressing  the  windows, 
while  others  were  setting  out  soaps  and  essences 
on  the  counter.  The  proprietor  came  forward 
to  serve  me,  and,  turning,  I  lifted  my  heavy 
veil  and  looked  at  him.  The  poor  man  was 
so  overcome  that  he  was  unable  to  speak  for 
a  few  seconds,  and,  when  he  at  last  found  words, 
all  he  could  stammer  was : 

"Our  Louisa!  Our  Louisa!" 

I  told  him  w^hat  had  brought  me  to  Dresden, 


MY  OWN  STORY  337 

and  his  sympathies  were  all  with  me  and  my 
errand;  he  informed  me  in  which  part  of  the 
Castle  my  children's  rooms  were  situated,  and 
as  that  was  all  I  desired  to  know,  I  re-entered 
the  cab  and  drove  to  the  Neue  Markt,  where 
I  dismissed  it.  I  was  terrified  lest  I  should  be 
recognised,  and  as  I  walked  through  the  market 
to  the  Taschenberg  Palace,  I  observed  a  man 
staring  at  me.  I  paid  no  attention,  and  hurried 
to  the  entrance  of  the  palace;  with  trembling 
fingers  I  was  just  on  the  point  of  pressing  the 
electric  button  when  my  hand  was  suddenly 
seized  and  I  confronted  the  man  who  had  pre- 
viously attracted  my  attention. 

He  took  off  his  hat  and  bowed.  "Imperial 
Highness,"  he  said;  "you  cannot  see  the  King 
or  the  royal  children." 

"Who  are  you?"  I  demanded. 

He  produced  a  badge  which  showed  that  he 
was  connected  with  the  criminal  police. 

"Your  coming  was  known  to  us,"  he  said, 
"the  palace  and  the  castle  are  stirroimded  by 
our  men,  and  you  must  at  once  return  with 
me  to  your  hotel." 

As  he  spoke  he  blew  his  whistle,  and  two 
policemen  appeared ;  I  saw  that  resistance  would 
be  useless,  and  made  no  remark,  but  I  think 


338  MY  OWN  STORY 

that  moment  was  one  of  the  most  hiimiUating 
and  distressing  in  my  Ufe.  I  looked  up  at  the 
rooms  which  had  been  my  home  for  eleven 
years,  but  I  saw  them  through  a  mist  of  tears. 
However,  I  called  all  my  courage  to  my  aid, 
and  behaved  with  the  dignity  of  a  descendant 
of  Maria-Theresa. 

An  icy  wind  laden  with  stabbing  flakes  of 
snow  was  blowing  as  I  and  my  "guard  of 
honour"  crossed  the  square.  As  the  trams  filled 
with  business  people  passed,  I  became  aware  of 
startled  faces  looking  at  me,  and  in  a  moment 
the  atmosphere  was  charged  with  electricity. 
The  policemen  escorted  me  to  the  Hotel  Belle 
Vue,  opposite  the  Opera;  that  again  w^as  familiar 
ground  to  me,  and  I  thought  of  the  days  when 
I  had  driven  there  in  one  of  the  royal  carriages, 
and  never  dreamed  that  I  should  be  arrested  on 
foot  in  my  own  capital. 

When  we  reached  the  hotel,  I  was  asked  to 
go  upstairs  with  the  man  who  had  taken  me 
into  custody,  and  a  room  was  chosen  which  had 
no  outlook  on  the  square;  it  was  most  cheer- 
less, but  I  sat  down  to  await  events.  I  was 
by  now  aware  that  my  lawyer  had  betrayed 
me,  and  when  he  came  into  my  presence,  I  told 
him  my  candid  opinion  of  his  despicable  conduct. 


MY  OWN  STORY  339 

At  last  the  manager  of  the  hotel  appeared  with 
a  magnificent  bouquet  of  roses,  which  he  pre- 
sented to  me  with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  his 
assurances  of  love  and  devotion. 

The  Chief  of  Police  was  my  next  visitor;  he 
did  not  attempt  to  remove  his  hat,  and  said 
roughly : 

"  I  am  deputed,  Countess,'  by  the  Ministry,  to 
offer  you  a  special  train  so  that  you  can  leave 
Dresden  at  once." 

I  advanced  to  the  centre  of  the  room. 

"You  are  wrong,"  I  said  quietly.  "You 
cannot  offer  a  special  train  except  to  a  queen; 
it  would  not  be  permissible  for  the  Countess 
Montignoso  to  avail  herself  of  it.  Return  to 
the  Ministers,  and  say  that  Louisa  of  Saxony 
will  choose  her  own  time  for  her  departure.  But 
you  can  also  tell  the  Ministers  that  they  have 
no  cause  for  apprehension.  I  shall  not  appeal 
to  the  people ;  my  only  wish  is  to  see  my  husband 
and  my  children." 

After  the  Chief  of  Police  had  left  the  hotel,  I 
sat  down  and  chatted  to  his  subordinate,  who 
was  genuinely  distressed. 

'  Countess  Montignoso  was  a  Tuscan  title  which  I  sometimes 
used  when  traveUing  incognito.  After  the  divorce  proceedings  at 
Dresden  it  was,  with  obvious  motives,  employed  by  the  Saxon 
Court  when  it  had  occasion  to  refer  to  me. 


340  MY  OWN  STORY 

"Oh,  forgive  me,  forgive  me,"  he  kept  on 
repeating.  "Alas!  that  /  should  be  compelled 
to  arrest  'Our  Louisa.'"  I  comforted  him,  and 
he  told  me  how  much  the  people  loved  me, 
and  how  well  he  remembered  the  days  of  my 
early  married  life.  Poor  man!  I  always  hope 
he  realised  that  I  bore  him  no  malice  for  the 
unwilling  part  he  played. 

I  wrote  to  the  King,  and  when  the  Chamber- 
lain, Herr  von  Criegern,  came  to  interview  me, 
I  asked  him  to  give  my  husband  the  letter.  He 
laughed  rudely. 

"Give  your  letter  to  the  King!  Certainly 
not!  Do  you  for  one  moment  suppose  that  his 
Majesty  ever  receives  any  of  your  communica- 
tions? Other  people  take  good  care  that  he  is 
not  troubled  by  you." 

I  could  have  killed  the  man.  "How  dare  you 
stand  there  and  say  this  to  me?"  I  demanded; 
"if  you  will  not  give  the  letter  to  my  husband  I 
will  find  some  one  who  will." 

The  letter  was  eventually  given  to  Frederick- 
August  at  a  "shoot"  which  had  been  hastily 
arranged  that  morning  in  order  to  get  him  av/ay 
from  Dresden.  I  am  told  that  when  he  read 
it  he  nearly  fainted,  and  at  once  ordered  a 
carriage  to  take  him  back,  as  he  wished  to  see 


MY  OWN  STORY  3^1 

me.  My  enemies  had  expected  this,  so  he  was 
told  I  had  already  left. 

I  demanded  an  audience  with  Von  Metzsch, 
who  was  too  cowardly  to  face  me.  He  sent  the 
Chamberlain,  however,  who  said  that  nothing 
could  be  done,  I  knew  that  this  man  disliked 
me,  but  even  he  seemed  somewhat  sympathetic, 
and  urged  me  to  leave  Dresden  as  soon  as 
possible,  for  the  news  of  my  arrival  had  spread, 
and  the  police  were  afraid  of  the  hostile  crowd, 
who  were  all  in  my  favour. 

I  lunched  with  the  lawyers,  and  my  cheerless 
sitting-room  had  now  become  a  perfect  bower 
of  flowers,  which  arrived  every  few  minutes. 
During  the  meal  my  attention  was  arrested  by 
a  sound  somewhat  resembling  distant  thvinder. 

"What  is  that  noise?"  I  inquired. 

The  reply  to  my  question  was  given  by  the 
Chief  of  Police,  who  rushed  into  the  room  sans 
ceremonie. 

"Imperial  Highness,"  he  cried,  "I  beg  of 
you  to  leave  Dresden,  for  in  a  few  moments  we 
shall  be  powerless.  Already  the  crowds  fill  the 
streets  and  the  square;  they  threaten  to  break 
into  the  hotel  and  carry  you  away.  I  implore 
you  not  to  be  the  cause  of  bloodshed." 

"All  this  is  your  own  fault,"  I  said,  coldly. 


342  MY  OWN  STORY 

"You  arrest  me  en  plein  jour.  What  else  can 
you  expect?  But  as  I  do  not  wish  to  expose 
my  people  to  injury,  I  will  leave  the  hotel — 
after  I  have  finished  my  lunch." 

I  was  as  good  as  my  word,  and  when  I  had 
collected  my  small  belongings,  went  downstairs 
with  the  officials.  As  soon  as  we  reached  the 
entrance-hall,  the  people  crowding  round  the 
door  saw  me,  and  a  tremendous  cry  went  up 
of  "Our  Louisa!" 

The  Chief  of  Police  wished  me  to  drive  in  a 
closed  carriage,  but  I  refused,  and  when  at  last 
I  emerged  from  the  hotel  I  saw  a  sight  I  shall 
never  forget. 

The  whole  square  was  packed  with  people; 
the  air  was  filled  with  angry  cries.  When  my 
carriage  appeared,  the  mob  broke  through  the 
cordon  and  rushed  to  the  vehicle. 

"Louisa,  stay  with  us,"  they  shouted. 

"Death  to  Von  Metzsch!" 

"Down  with  the  Church!" 

Some  ran  to  the  horses'  heads  and  tried  to  pull 
the  coachman  off  his  box,  others  pressed  forward 
to  grasp  my  hand.  I  stood  up  in  the  carriage  and 
endeavoured  to  speak.     A  roar  of  voices  arose. 

"Let  your  people  know  how  you  have  been 
treated !    Write  a  manifesto  and  justify  yourself ! 


MY  OWN  STORY  343 

Don't  be  afraid,  the  whole  of  Saxony  is  with 
you." 

"  Hush,"  I  said,  as  soon  as  I  could  make  myself 
heard.  "Don't  make  a  disturbance.  I  love 
you  with  all  my  heart.  Think  of  me  as  an 
unhappy  mother.  I  will  speak  one  day  and  let 
you  all  know  the  truth." 

At  last  we  managed  to  reach  the  railway- 
station,  and  the  whole  route  was  lined  with 
cheering  crowds;  never  before  had  I  seen  such 
a  demonstration.  I  v/as  taken  to  the  departure 
platform  by  the  recently  constructed  approach, 
and  the  station  was  thronged  with  tearful  people, 
eager  to  show  their  respect  for  me.  I  found 
my  coupe  a  mass  of  flowers.  There  were  many 
letters  there,  too,  and  the  burden  of  all  the 
communications  was — justify  yourself. 

Amid  the  waving  of  handkerchiefs  and  cries 
of  "Au  revoir,  Louisa,"  the  train  steamed  out 
of  the  station. 

Wrherever  it  stopped,  crowds  assembled,  and 
everywhere  I  met  with  assurances  of  love  and 
loyalty.  I  had  a  long  talk  with  the  Chief  of 
Police;  I  remembered  him  when  he  held  a  very 
subordinate  position,  and  I  could  not  help 
remarking:  "Well,  it  is  a  strange  world.  I 
suppose  that  in  your  wildest  dreams  you  never 


344  ^Y  OWN  STORY 

imagined  it  woiild  be  yoiir  lot  to  escort  me  to 
the  frontier!" 

I  arrived  at  Leipzig  in  the  evening;  the  whole 
station  had  been  appropriated  by  the  students^ 
who  were  dressed  in  black  and  wore  black  hats, 
black  ties,  and  black  gloves,  for  all  the  world 
like  mourners  at  a  funeral!  I  was  received  by 
the  head  of  the  Leipzig  police,  and,  escorted  by 
him  and  the  Dresden  officer,  I  passed  through 
the  black  and  silent  crowd. 

Suddenly  there  were  cries  of  "Louisa!  Louisa! 
We  will  carry  you  back  to  Dresden!"  and  I  felt 
myself  lifted  by  strong  arms,  and  though  I  beg- 
ged my  supporters  to  desist,  the  cries  continued. 

"Keep  quiet,"  I  said  to  those  nearest  to  me. 
"You  must  not  make  these  demonstrations. 
I  promise  one  day  that  you  shall  know  all." 

"We  drove  to  the  lawyer 's  house,  but  the 
people  ran  behind  the  carriage,  throwing  flowers, 
and  imploring  me  not  to  be  driven  out  of  Saxon3^ 
I  was  quite  exhausted  by  the  excitement  of  the 
day,  but  as  I  was  obliged  to  leave  Leipzig  that 
night,  I  rettimed  to  the  station  after  I  had  finished 
discussing  business  matters  with  my  lawyer. 

The  crowd  still  filled  the  station,  and  the  cries 
of  the  populace  never  ceased. 

"We  will  kill  your  enemies.    You  allow  your- 


MY  OWN  STORY  345 

self  to  be  trampled  on,  but  yotir  silence  is  more 
eloquent  than  words." 

"Tell  everything;  we  know  who  your  enemies 
are." 

Others  screamed,  "Revenge!  Revenge!  We 
will  not  let  Louisa  go." 

The  secret  police  were  ever3rwhere,  trying  to 
discover  the  authors  of  these  treasonable  cries, 
but  they  met  with  little  or  no  success. 

I  quite  expected  that  a  seat  would  be  reserved 
for  me,  but  such  was  not  the  case,  and  I  was 
put  into  a  "through"  coupe  to  Frankfort.  The 
train  was  crowded,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the 
courtesy  of  a  gentleman  who  gave  me  his  seat 
I  should  have  been  obliged  to  make  the  journey 
standing. 

So  ended  my  coup  de  tete.  I  did  not  regret 
my  useless  and  painful  experience,  because  it 
showed  me  that  I  was  still  beloved  in  Saxony, 
and  I  realised  the  wonderful  value  of  disinter- 
ested affection.  As  I  sat  in  the  hot  coupe,  stared 
at  by  inquisitive  eyes,  bereft  of  all  royal  dignity, 
an  exiled  woman  and  a  desolate  mother,  I  felt  a 
glow  of  pride  when  I  recalled  the  honest,  excited 
faces  of  my  adherents,  and  I  heard  again  the 
shouts  of  "Louisa,"  which  I  knew  came  straight 
from  loyal  hearts. 


CHAPTER  XX 


Popular  Feeling  in  Saxony — Life  at  St.  Domenico — /  am 
not  allowed  to  remain  in  peace — Alma  Muth,  spy — 
The  King  of  Saxony's  lawyer  arrives  in  Florence — 
An  interview  at  the  Consulate — I  refuse  to  surrender 
Monica — The  siege  of  the  villa — /  turn  Alma  Muth 
out  of  the  house — She  goes  to  Pegli  with  Dr.  Korner 
— What  was  overheard  in  the  restaurant  car — /  make 
the  acquaintance  of  another  spy,  Frau  Ida  Kremer — 
Her  methods — A  vile  hook — /  receive  permission  to 
see  my  children — Our  meeting  at  Munich — /  resolve 
to  let  Monica  go  to  Saxony — My  second  marriage — / 
conclude  my  story. 


347 


CHAPTER  XX 


/V /I  Y  coup  de  tete  caused  tremendous  excitement 
all  over  Saxony.  The  accounts  of  my 
arrival  at  Dresden  and  reception  at  Leipzig  were 
ordered  to  be  suppressed  in  all  the  newspapers, 
and  it  was  forbidden  to  mention  my  name.  If  I 
had  remained  another  twenty -four  hours,  there 
would  have  been  a  revolution,  and  the  author- 
ities were  fully  aware  of  the  gravity  of  the 
situation.  On  the  night  I  left  Saxony,  myself  and 
my  wrongs  were  the  only  topic  of  conversation, 
and  afterwards  most  extraordinary  scenes  took 
place.  In  tiny  cottages  far  away  in  the  country, 
my  photograph  was  encircled  with  chaplets  of 
flowers,  candles  were  burned  before  it,  women 
wore  brooches  containing  my  likeness,  and 
although  the  police  afterwards  prohibited  the 
sale  of  my  picture  post-cards,  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands were  sold  in  one  day  alone,  and  during  the 
months  of  January  and  February  after  I  left 
Dresden  the  demand  for  them  was  enormous. 
If  any  officials  were  known  to  favour  me,  it 

349 


350  MY  OWN  STORY 

was  all  up  with  their  prospects  of  promotion. 
When  I  first  left  Dresden,  there  was  a  refresh- 
ment buffet  at  the  Opera  where  excellent  choco- 
late was  sold,  and  the  proprietor  sold  medallions 
of  chocolate  stamped  with  my  likeness,  and 
called  the  bonbon  "Louisa  Chocolate."  It  sold 
remarkably  well,  but  one  day  the  man  v\as  sent 
for  by  the  management  of  the  Opera  and  told 
he  must  give  up  the  buffet  within  twenty-four 
hours  on  accoimt  of  his  selling  the  "treasonable" 
chocolate.  The  unlucky  proprietor,  who  was 
one  of  my  partisans,  wrote  and  told  me  what 
had  occurred,  adding  that  whatever  happened 
to  his  fortunes,  his  devotion  would  never  swerve. 

These  sentiments  of  loyalty  still  prevail,  and 
are  the  greatest  source  of  consolation  to  me.  I 
thank  all  my  unknown  friends  who  write  so 
kindly,  and  I  value  every  letter  I  receive.  On 
my  last  birthday  I  acknowledged  four  thousand 
cards  of  greeting,  a  physically  exhausting  task, 
but  one  which  was  only  a  labour  of  love. 

My  life  at  San  Domenico  was  for  a  time 
uneventful,  but  naturally  my  enemies  did  not  for 
long  allow  me  to  continue  in  peace.  Their 
object  was  to  find  out  whether  I  had  a  love 
affair,  and  they  employed  spies  to  attain  their 
ignoble  ends.    When  Monica  was  bom  I  chose 


MY  OWN  STORY  351 

her  a  Protestant  nurse,  whom  I  liked  and 
trusted,  but  this  did  not  suit  the  Court,  who 
insisted  that  I  should  have  a  Catholic  nurse  of 
their  own  selection.  As  I  desired,  for  several 
reasons,  to  avoid  friction  over  the  child,  I  agreed 
to  accede  to  their  wish,  and  accordingly  Fraulein 
Alma  Muth  was  sent  from  Dresden  to  take 
charge  of  Monica. 

One  day  I  was  told  over  the  telephone  that  I 
had  a  spy  in  my  household  and  that  this  person 
was  my  child's  nurse.  As  the  information 
seemed  genuine,  I  made  secret  inquiries  on  my 
own  account,  and  discovered  that  Alma  Muth 
corresponded  with  the  Saxon  Court  through  the 
medium  of  the  German  Consulate  at  Florence. 
She  had  asked  me  to  allow  her  to  take  a  daily 
walk  in  the  grounds  of  the  villa,  and  I  found  out 
that  when  she  did  so,  she  had  long,  unobserved 
conversations  with  an  employee  at  the  Consulate 
who  came  there  for  the  purpose  of  being  told 
what  I  was  doing.  I  also  ascertained  that  she 
telephoned  to  the  Consulate,  but  when  I  taxed 
her  with  her  treacherous  behaviour  she  flatly 
denied  everything. 

The  morning  after  my  conversation  with 
Muth,  I  received  a  telephonic  message  from  a 
hotel  in  Florence,  informing  me  that  the  King 


353  MY  OWN  STORY 

of  Saxony's  lawyer,  Dr.  Korner,  had  just 
arrived,  and  wished  to  see  me.  I  repHed  that 
I  was  quite  ready  to  receive  him,  and  in  about 
an  hour's  time  he  drove  up  in  a  landau. 

The  lawyer  had  a  long  discussion  with  me 
about  Monica  's  future,  but  nothing  was  settled, 
and  I  felt  that  his  visit  was  only  a  ruse.  I 
was  afterwards  asked  to  go  to  the  Consulate,  but 
when  I  arrived,  there  was  no  one  to  receive  me. 
At  last,  however,  after  a  long  wait,  Korner 
came  on  the  scene.  In  a  very  rude  manner  he 
told  me  that  he  was  ordered  to  take  Monica 
away,  and  he  showed  me  a  document  which 
empowered  him  to  act  exactly  as  he  thought  fit. 

I  fiimg  the  paper  in  his  face,  but  all  he  said 
was: 

"Countess,  be  ready  at  two  o'clock  this 
afternoon  to  give  up  your  child." 

I  felt  like  a  tigress  at  bay,  and  with  blazing 
eyes  I  confronted  him,  saying: 

"You  will  tell  me  why,  before  I  shall  allow 
you  to  take  Monica;  try  to  get  her  by  force  if 
you  can,  but  so  long  as  I  am  free  I  will  defend 
her  and  defy  you."    He  spat  on  the  floor. 

"What  can  you  do?"  he  answered,  jeeringly. 

I  wasted  no  time,  but  motored  back  to  the  villa. 
I  sent  for  my  butler  and  my  cook,  and  told  them 


MY  OWN  STORY  353 

that  the  house  was  to  be  well  guarded,  and  that 
if  either  of  them  betrayed  me  I  would  have  the 
traitor  instantly  punished.  I  also  gave  orders 
that  the  telephone  should  be  disconnected,  and 
all  the  bell-wires  cut,  and  I  especially  instructed 
them  not  to  lose  sight  of  Alma  Muth  for  a  single 
instant. 

At  two  o'clock  Muth  came  to  me  and  asked 
whether  I  had  seen  the  King's  lawyer.  She  was 
perfectly  furious  at  my  contemptuous  attitude. 
At  last  I  heard  the  noise  of  carriage  wheels, 
and  peeping  through  the  blinds  I  saw  a  landau 
coming  up  the  drive.  When  it  drew  up  I  saw 
that  it  contained  Komer  and  the  villainous 
Taschenberg  servant  who  had,  as  I  afterwards 
heard,  begged  to  be  allowed  to  come  in  order 
to  gloat  over  my  misfortunes. 

Both  men  alighted,  but,  after  wasting  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  in  trying  to  effect  an  en- 
trance, they  were  obliged  to  return  to  Florence. 
The  telephone  was  then  resorted  to,  but  that  was 
useless,  so,  fuming  and  fretting,  the  lawyer  again 
came  up  to  the  villa. 

A  regular  "siege"  then  commenced.  Muth 
went  to  the  maids  and  demanded  to  be  let  out. 
She  had  up  till  then  relied  on  these  women, 
whom  she  had  bribed,  but  she  did  not  reckon  on 


354  ^^y  OWN  STORY 

the  temperament  of  Italian  servants.  Directly 
they  saw  my  attitude  of  inflexible  determination, 
they  refused  to  help  her  in  any  way,  and  she 
was  beside  herself  with  rage  and  mortifica- 
tion. 

It  was  not  unamusing  inside  the  villa,  for  the 
chef  had  armed  himself  with  a  revolver,  which  he 
repeatedly  pointed  at  Muth,  as  a  gentle  reminder 
that  she  was  not  by  any  means  having  things 
all  her  own  way. 

The  next  day  I  went  into  Florence  to  inter- 
view the  King  's  lauyer,  and  remained  in  his 
office  from  9  a.m.  to  5  P.M.  He  read  a  long 
statement  in  German  which  Muth  had  sent 
him,  and  he  argued  and  threatened  imtil  my 
patience  was  quite  exhausted.  I  was  faint  from 
want  of  food,  for  no  refreshment  was  offered  me, 
although  Fraiilein  Muth  was  given  chocolate 
and  biscuits. 

At  five  o'clock  we  went  to  the  villa,  where 
another  statement  by  Muth  was  produced.  She 
nearly  went  mad  with  rage  when  it  was  read, 
and  declared  that  she  would  swear  nothing. 
The  villa  servants  were  next  interrogated,  but 
they  blandly  maintained  that  they  could  neither 
read  nor  write,  and  that  any  statements  said  to 
be  theirs  must  be  inventions. 


MY  OWN  STORY  355 

The  lawyer  was  quite  mortified,  and  he  said, 
bitterly:  "He  laughs  best  who  laughs  last." 

I  agreed  with  him  that  this  was  often  the  case, 
and  he  continued:  "I  shall  bring  some  luggage 
the  next  time  I  come  for  the  Princess,  and 
when  I  take  her  to  Saxony  she  shall  not  wear 
a  single  thing  you  have  touched." 

When  he  returned  later,  he  failed  as  before 
to  gain  admittance  to  the  villa.  He  was  rein- 
forced this  time  by  the  German  Consul,  who 
said  in  a  loud  pompous  voice:  "In  the  name  of 
William  H.,  I  ask  you,  Countess  Montignoso,  to 
open  your  doors." 

As  I  took  not  the  slightest  notice,  Komer 
went  to  the  Italian  police,  and  asked  them  to 
assist  him  in  enforcing  my  obedience  to  his 
Sovereign's  orders,  but  he  received  a  reply  to 
the  effect  that  the  Italian  police  recognised  no 
orders  but  those  of  the  King  of  Italy. 

Night  fell,  and  from  my  bedroom  window 
I  watched  the  progress  of  events.  I  observed 
a  carriage  coming  up  the  road;  it  stopped, 
and  some  one  made  flashes  with  a  hand  electric 
lamp.  This  was,  as  I  afterwards  discovered, 
the  signal  to  Muth  that  Korner  was  waiting, 
and  that  later  she  was  to  bring  Monica  out 
through  the  garden  without  m}^  knowledge. 


356  MY  OWN  STORY 

Naturally  there  was  no  sleep  for  us,  and  at 
two  A.M.  the  butler  informed  me  that  some 
telegrams  had  just  been  delivered,  and  that  the 
boys  wished  to  see  me.  They  told  me  that 
when  they  passed  the  carriage,  which  was  drawn 
up  on  one  side  of  the  road,  some  one  inside 
hailed  them  and  asked  where  they  were  going. 
They  replied:  "To  the  villa  with  telegrams" — 
"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"Oh,"  answered  the  coachman,  "we  're  wait- 
ing to  take  away  an  insane  lady  who  is  inside 
the  house." 

It  was  a  bitter  night,  and  Komer  and  his 
friends  kept  themselves  warm  with  plentiful 
supplies  of  cognac;  but  at  four  a.m.  they  ap- 
parently grew  tired  of  waiting,  and  drove  off, 
leaving  me  mistress  of  the  situation. 

I  instinctively  felt,  however,  that  something 
was  still  afoot,  so  I  went  upstairs  to  the  night 
nursery,  where  I  foimd  Monica  dressed  for 
travelling  and  her  trunk  packed.  Muth  was  in 
her  own  room,  so  I  told  the  butler  to  go  at  once 
and  tell  her  that  some  one  from  the  Consulate 
wished  to  see  her  in  the  garden,  and  that,  in  order 
to  get  her  out  of  the  house,  he  was  to  pretend  to 
give  this  information  without  my  knowledge. 
The  ruse  was  completely  successful.    The  butler 


MY  OWN  STORY  357 

unlocked  a  side  door,  and  Muth  rushed  out 
hatless  and  coatless,  into  the  night,  only  to  dis- 
cover that  she  had  been  duped,  and  was  unable 
to  get  back. 

I  called  the  trembling  servants,  and  said  in  my 
most  awe-iuspiring  manner:  "If  any  one  dares 
cross  me,  it  will  mean  immediate  arrest."  Then 
I  told  the  maids  to  collect  Muth's  clothes  and 
throw  them  out  of  the  window.  This  was  done, 
and  her  luggage  was  then  put  outside  by  the 
frightened  girls,  while  the  butler  mounted  guard 
with  a  pistol. 

Muth  rushed  about  the  garden  like  a  person 
demented,  and  at  last  went  to  San  Domenico 
and  telephoned  to  Komer,  who  sent  up  a 
carriage  to  take  her  and  her  belongings  away. 
The  siege  of  the  villa  lasted  a  whole  fortnight, 
and  then  my  enemies  gave  it  up  in  despair.  It 
afforded  a  great  deal  of  amusement,  plenty  of 
"copy"  for  the  Press,  and  was  the  subject  of 
numerous  caricatures  in  the  Dresden  comic 
papers. 

Dr.  Komer  left  Florence,  but  as  Fraulein 
Muth's  nerves  were  rather  shattered  after  the 
exciting  time  through  which  she  had  passed, 
he  very  kindly  took  her  to  Pegli  on  the  Riviera 
to  recuperate,  and  I  have  no  doubt  she  derived 


358  MY  OWN  STORY 

great  benefit  from  her  restful  change.  They 
returned  to  Dresden  together,  but,  unfortunately 
for  themselves,  they  were  indiscreet  enough  to 
abuse  the  King  of  Saxony  and  his  Ministers 
while  dining  in  the  restaurant  car.  Their 
remarks  were  overheard  by  a  German  lawyer, 
who  reported  them  to  the  Dresden  authorities, 
with  the  result  that  Komer  is  no  longer  employed 
by  the  King. 

After  Fraulein  Muth's  departure,  Von  Metzsch 
made  another  attempt  to  ruin  my  position.  I 
had  insisted  on  my  faithful  nurse  returning 
to  my  service,  and  as  this  greatly  annoyed  my 
enemy,  he  again  issued  an  order  that  Monica 
should  have  a  Catholic  governess.  He  sent  a 
Jewish  convert,  Frau  Ida  Kremer,  who  was 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  priests,  and  she  duly 
arrived  at  Florence.  She  is  an  ugly,  himch- 
backed  woman,  whose  mind  is  as  distorted  as 
her  body.  I  can  say  with  perfect  truth  that  she 
was  a  most  accomplished  spy,  and  as  she  has 
a  very  vivid  imagination,  she  invented  what 
she  was  unable  to  find  out. 

When  Frau  Kremer  had  been  with  me  a  few 
days,  an  unknown  friend  warned  me  by  tele- 
phone to  be  very  carefiil,  as  my  house  again 
harboured  a  traitor,  and  that  Von   Metzsch's 


J 


MY  OWN  STORY  359 

agents  intended  to  force  a  sudden  entrance  one 
night  to  see  if  they  could  discover  me  in  com- 
promising circumstances.  This  plan  was  act- 
ually carried  out.  The  villa  was  broken  into 
on  one  occasion,  but  naturally  nothing  was 
stolen,  and  the  "burglars"  were  disturbed  before 
they  made  their  way  upstairs.  Another  time 
my  garage  was  entered  and  some  tires  were  taken 
away,  and  I  often  heard  mysterious  noises  at 
night.  But  I  fancy  Frau  Kremer's  reports  at 
last  convinced  her  employers  that  my  mode  of 
life  was  above  suspicion,  and  I  was  troubled  no 
more  by  night  alarms. 

Frau  Kremer  left  me  after  a  stay  of  six 
weeks,  and  concocted  a  wicked  book  purporting 
to  deal  with  me  and  my  life  in  Florence.  It 
was  a  scandalous  production,  but  I  suppose  it 
satisfied  those  who  instigated  her  to  write  it. 
She  tried  to  sell  it  to  a  "backstairs"  publisher 
in  Berlin;  but  directly  my  friends  in  Saxony 
heard  that  negotiations  were  in  progress,  they 
threatened  to  boycott  any  bookseller  who  sup- 
plied the  production,  and  it  was  eventually 
issued  as  a  feuiUeton  in  a  Berlin  paper.  It  was 
a  tissue  of  lies,  with  an  occasional  grain  of  truth, 
for,  as  the  authoress  had  eaten  my  salt,  she  had 
had  many  opportunities  of  studying  me,  and 


36o  MY  OWN  STORY 

several  things  in  the  book  could  only  have  been 
learnt  from  me.  Unfortunately  this  abominable 
work,  like  the  bogus  Confessions  of  a  Princess, 
did  me  a  great  deal  of  harm;  but  the  accusa- 
tions it  contained  were  too  vile  to  answer, 
and  I  took  no  steps  to  repudiate  them  publicly. 

I  was,  by  this  time,  qmte  used  to  scandalous 
reports  being  circulated  about  me;  I  could 
hardly  ever  take  up  a  newspaper  without  coming 
upon  something  about  myself,  and  I  read  with 
some  amusement  the  fabricated  accoimts  of 
my  extraordinary  and  extravagant  tastes.  But 
the  things  which  really  pained  and  disgusted  me 
were  the  unfounded  reports  about  my  private 
life.  If  I  spoke  to  a  man  he  was  at  once  assimied 
to  be  my  lover,  and  it  was  impossible  for 
me  to  enjoy  his  friendship  without  the  worst 
construction  being  placed  upon  the  circum- 
stance. 

My  life  was  absolutely  dull.  I  rode  and  drove, 
and  in  the  summer  I  travelled,  and  occasionally 
visited  papa  and  mamma  who  were  now  quite 
friendly  to  me.  My  one  bright  experience 
was  in  October,  1906,  when  I  received  per- 
mission from  the  King  to  have  an  hour  and  a 
half's  interview  with  my  darling  boys.  I  was 
overjoyed  at  his  kindness,  and  decided  to  take 


Photograph  by  the  iJover  Street  Studios,  l,t<i.,  I-oiidon,  \V. 

PRINCESS    LOUISA 


361 


MY  OWN  STORY  3C3 

Monica  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  her  brothers 
and  sisters. 

The  meeting  took  place  at  the  Saxon  Embassy 
at  Mimich.  Mamma  went  with  me,  and  I  was 
told  that  I  must  conform  to  prescribed  con- 
ditions and  regulations  as  to  my  behaviour. 
I  was  not  to  be  permitted  a  private  interview, 
and  I  was  expressly  forbidden  to  say  a  word 
about  my  departure  from  Saxony  and  my 
present  mode  of  life. 

When  we  arrived  at  Munich,  we  drove  to  the 
Embassy,  and  the  Saxon  Ambassador,  instead 
of  waiting  for  me  upstairs,  as  had  been  arranged, 
came  down  to  my  carriage,  and,  kissing  my 
hand,  said  with  tears  in  his  eyes:  "Come  quickly, 
Princess,  for  your  little  ones  anxiously  await 
their  mother." 

We  hurried  upstairs  and  he  threw  open  the 
door  of  the  salon.  It  was  a  dark  day,  and  the 
first  things  I  saw  were  the  silhouettes  of  lury  and 
Tia  who  were  sitting  by  the  window.  I  ad- 
vanced ;  the  room  seemed  swimming  round  me ; 
I  was  overcome  by  a  thousand  emotions,  and 
I  could  hardly  believe  that  my  darlings  were 
actually  before  me.  Trembling — my  heart  filled 
with  a  mother's  aching  love  —  I  clasped  my 
children  in  my  arms  and  they  clung  to  me  as 


364  MY  OWN  STORY 

though  we  had  never  been  separated.  We 
Itinched  together,  and  the  boys  told  me  that 
"papa"  always  made  them  pray  for  mamma, 
who  was  so  far  away.  This  remembrance  of 
me  was  bitter  sweet,  and  I  thought  with  a  pang 
that  if  only  Frederick-August  had  brought  the 
children  to  me  how  different  things  might 
have  been!  Time  passed  only  too  quickly,  and 
then  came  the  moment  of  parting — and  I  cannot 
find  words  to  describe  it.  The  children  went  to 
Cannes,  and  I  returned  to  Florence  with  Monica. 
Every  year  the  King  asked  me  to  give  up 
Monica,  and  each  time  he  did  so  I  begged  to 
be  allowed  to  keep  her  a  little  longer.  Monica 
was  a  really  beautiful  child;  she  had  a  sweet, 
sunny  disposition,  and  the  most  winning  ways. 
We  were  inseparable,  and  her  companionship 
made  my  life  so  much  happier  that  I  could  hardly 
face  even  the  idea  of  parting  with  her  for  a 
single  day.  Tremendous  pressure,  however, 
was  eventually  brought  to  bear  upon  me.  It 
was  pointed  out  that  my  love  was  selfish,  and  I 
was  urged  not  to  deprive  my  child  of  the  advan- 
tages of  her  birthright  by  insisting  that  she 
should  share  my  fallen  fortunes.  I  have  always 
endeavoured  to  preserve  an  entirely  impartial 
judgment  in  the  affairs  of  my  life,  so  I  considered 


MY  OWN  STORY  365 

the  question  of  Monica  's  future  from  all  points 
of  view.  I  decided  to  put  aside  my  maternal 
love  for  the  time  being,  and  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  if  she  was  to  go  to  Saxony  it  would 
be  far  better  for  her  to  do  so  when  she  was 
a  tiny  girl,  as  no  one  would  then  be  able  to  say 
I  had  kept  her  until  she  was  old  enough  for 
me  to  prejudice  her  against  her  relatives.  I  did 
not  wish  the  child  ever  to  reproach  me  with  not 
giving  her  what  the  world  would  consider  her 
due ;  and  although  she  would  probably  have  been 
very  happy  with  me,  I  felt  it  was  my  duty  to 
restore  her  to  her  father,  and  I  can  only  pray 
that  my  little  Monica  will  have  a  happier  life 
as  a  princess  than  that  which  fell  to  my  lot. 

It  was  a  great  struggle  to  sever  this  last 
link  with  my  old  life.  I  felt,  however,  that 
my  husband  would  love  Monica,  and  that  she 
would  not,  at  least,  suffer  from  any  lack  of 
affection.  This  thought  made  the  parting  easier 
to  bear,  but  a  merciful  Providence  hid  what  the 
future  held  in  store  for  me.  I  never  realised 
that  I  should  not  be  allowed  to  see  my  children 
again,  and  that  their  affection  for  me  would  be 
left  to  the  tenacity  of  their  early  memories. 

Surely  a  mother  should  not  be  deprived  of 


366  MY  OWN  STORY 

the  rights  of  motherhood  unless  strong  adverse 
reasons  prevail.  Circumstances  may  arise  which 
estrange  husbands  and  wives;  love  may  die  and 
affection  wane,  but  it  is  a  cruel  thing  to  prevent 
a  mother  from  seeing  her  own  children. 

I  tried  to  pick  up  the  threads  of  my  life, 
and  present  a  brave  face  to  the  world,  but 
my  enemies  actively  continued  their  persecu- 
tion. I  desired  to  be  protected  as  a  wife,  so 
that  the  tongues  of  slander  might  be  silenced, 
and  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  married 
Signor  Toselli.  With  that  curious  mania  for 
self-effacement  which  sometimes  seizes  the  Habs- 
burgs,  I  chose  to  marry  a  man  who  boasted 
no  pride  of  ancestry,  and  possessed  no  worldly 
wealth. 

My  second  marriage  completely  estranged  my 
parents  who,  as  strict  Catholics,  abhorred  the 
idea,  and  considered  that  I  had  no  right  to 
take  such  a  step,  as  my  marriage  with  Frederick- 
August  had  not  been  annulled  by  the  Vatican. 

Here  ends  my  story  inasmuch  as  it  concerns 
my  more  or  less  public  life  as  Crown  Princess 
of  Saxony.  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  the 
world  what  actually  went  on  at  the  Court  of 
Dresden,    and   how   I   fared   at   the  hands   of 


MY  OWN  STORY  367 

unscrupulous  enemies.  I  have  hitherto  been 
judged  without  a  hearing,  but  now  I  have 
pleaded  my  ov/n  cause. 

I  have  seen  the  splendour  and  the  shadows 
of  life;  I  have  touched  the  heights  of  joy  and 
walked  in  sorrow's  depths,  but  I  still  rejoice 
in  friends  who  love  me,  and  I  look  forward  to 
a  brighter  future. 

So  walking  here  in  twilight,  O  my  friends! 

I  hear  your  voices  softened  by  the  distance 
And  pause,  and  turn  to  listen,  as  each  sends 

His  words  of  friendship,  comfort,  and  assistance, 

THE  END 


"Jin  Exceedingly  Interesting  Volume  of 
Memoirs," 


Recollections  of  a  Parisian 

(Dr.  Poumies  de  la  Siboutie) 

Under  Six  Sovereigns,  Two  Revolutions,  and  a  Republic 

1789-1863 

Translated  by  Lady  Theodora  Davidson 

8vo.    $3.00  net.    (i$5.2S  by  mait) 

"  Here  is  a  book  to  read  and  re-read.  No  more  in- 
teresting book  of  recollections  has  appeared  in  years. 
The  genial  doctor  who  wrote  it  lived  under  six  sovereigns, 
one  republic,  and  witnessed  two  revolutions.  His  diaries 
cover  the  period  from  1789  to  1863,  which  latter  was  the 
year  of  his  death." — Miss  Gilder  in  ''The  Reader'' 

"Paris,  sullen,  poverty-stricken,  discontented;  Paris  in- 
toxicated by  the  enthusiasm  for  a  great  leader;  Paris 
under  defeat  and  plague;  Paris  deceiving  herself  into  a 
false  gaiety;  Paris  in  a  hundred  moods,  palpitates  with 
life  in  these  pages  .  .  .  the  events  have  never  been  de- 
scribed with  greater  reality." — Manchester  Courier. 

"  He  met  nearly  every  one  worth  knowing  in  Paris  of 
his  day,  and  the  book  teems  with  little  character  sketches 
illustrated  by  stories;  indeed,  the  book  is  full  of  good 
stories,  well  told." — Sheffield  Telegraph, 

New  York  G.    P.    Putnam's    Sons  London 


Personal  and  Critical  Studies  of  Noteworthy  Characters 
in  Literature,  in  Society,  and  in  History 


Louise  de  la  Vallifere 

And  the  Early  Life  of  Louis  XIV 

By  Jules  Lair 

8ro.    With  IlJustratioas.     $350  net 

'*  Animation,  picturesqueness,  and  lifelike  description  sparkle  through  the  volume.  The 
illustrations  are  both  tine  and  humorous  and  the  translation  generally  flowing  and  idiomatic. 
\\'e  have  nothing  but  praise  for  a  charming  work  charmingly  printed." — Literary  Digest. 

Great  Ralegh 

By  Hugh  de  Selincourt 
6yo.     With  16  Illustrations.     $3,50  net 

The  life  of  Sir  Walter  Ralegh,  soldier,  author,  statesman,  courtier,  explorer,  illustrates 
in  a  remarkable  manner  the  astounding  vitality  of  the  great  time  in  which  he  lived.  An 
attempt  has  been  made  to  give  a  picture  of  the  life  and  of  the  great  men  who  figured  in  it. 

"  In  the  matter  of  simple  narrative  this  biography  is  all  it  should  be — direct,  well- 
founded,  and  full  of  color." — Outlook. 

George  Villiers,  First  Duke  of 
Buckingham 

And  Some  Men  and  Women  of  the  Stuart  Court 

By  Philip  Gibbs 

6yo,    20  FiiU'-page  Illustrations.     $3.50  net 

The  life  of  George  Villiers,  the  first  Duke  of  Buckingham,  whose  personal  beauty, 
courage,  natural  gallantrj',  elegance,  and  charm  made  him  the  favorite  of  the  monarchs, 
d.izzled  the  eyes  of  his  contemporaries,  and  commend  him  strongly  to  all  lovers  of  the 
romantic,  the  daring,  and  the  adventurous  in  character.  It  is  also  a  splendidly  colored  and 
dramatic  picture  of  the  Court  life  of  the  period. 

Chaucer's  England 

By  G.  G.  Coulton 
8vo.     With  32  Iliustr&Uons,     $3.50  net 

A  picture  of  Chaucer  the  man,  with  a  background  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived. 

"  Mr.  Coulton  has  supplied  a  real  want,  and  in  a  manner  at  once  pleasant,  clear,  and 
genuinely  scholarly." — Morr.infi  Leader. 

"  The  whole  stor-/  is  1  id  bfforc  us  with  a  vivid  touch,  a  skill  lent  by  real  insight,  and 
well-schooled  imagination." — Birmingha-nt  Po^t. 


By  Lloyd  Sanders 
6to.     With  24  Illustrations.     53.50  net 

A  delightful  gallery  of  witty  and  distinguished  men  and  women, — Rogers,  Bacon, 
Moore,  Sydney  Smith,  Macaulay  among  them. 

"A  thoroughly  entertaining  and  discriminating  Tolume.  One  of  the  most  agreeable 
books  of  the  seasou." — PnU  I'lall  Garotte. 

Send  for  IHuTtraicd  Descrift've  Circular 


New  York      G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS      London 


Personal  and  critical  studies  of  noteworthy 

characters  in  literature,  in  society, 

and  in  history 

Tasso  and  His  Times 

By  W.  BOULTINQ 

With  24  Illustrations.     6vo.    $2.75  net 

During  the  last  few  years  the  true  facts  of  the  pathetic  life  of 
Tasso  have  been  revealed.  This  volume  attempts  to  give  the  English 
public  the  real  Tasso.  It  aims  at  portraying  him  and  the  brilliant 
and  interesting  personalities  of  his  period,  setting  them  in  a  vivid 
picture  of  Italian  life  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

Petrarch  and  His  Life,  Work, 
and  Times 

By  H.  C.  HOLLWAY-CALTHROP 

Svo.    24  Illustrations.    $3.50 

Taking  Petrarch's  fascinating  character  and  varied  career  as  his 
main  theme,  the  author  endeavors  to  give  a  sketch  of  fourteenth 
century  life  at  once  historically  accurate  and  attractive  to  the  general 
reader.  The  lover  of  Laura  and  her  Poet ;  the  founder  of  Humanism, 
whom  Boccaccio  called  friend  and  master;  the  associate  of  King 
Robert  of  Naples,  of  Rienzi,  of  Popes,  Cardinals,  Princes,  and  an 
Emperor,  Petrarch  played  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  social,  intel- 
lectual, and  political  life  of  his  age,  and  hardly  a  city  of  Italy  is 
unconnected  with  his  career. 

Dante  and  His  Italy 

By  LONSDALE   RAGG,  B.D.,  Oxon. 

6vo.     With  32  Illustrations.    $3.50  net 

"  One  of   the  most  vivid  and  intimate  contributions  made  in 
recent  years  to  the  popular  literature  of  Dante." — M.  Y.  Tribune. 
"  We  heartily  commend  the  whole  book." — N,  Y.  Sun. 

Wordsworth  and  His  Circle 

By   D.  W.  RANNIE 

With  many  Illustrations.     8vo.    $3.00  net 

This  is  intended  as  a  book  of  initiation  into  Wordsworth  and 
his  surroundings,  local  and  human.  It  is  a  study,  biographical  and 
critical,  drawn  from  original  sources,  of  the  man  and  poet  in  his 
relations  to  his  chief  friends  and  compeers. 

Send  for  Illustrated  Descriptive  Circular 


New  York     Q.   P.   Putnam'S  Sons  London 


Ic  Fraacc,  England,  ^nd  the  Unhcd  States,  (his  work  is  recognized  as 
the  most  Lnportant  of  all  the  contributions  to  modern  history.  It  places 
M.  Hanotaux  in  the  front  rank  of  French  historians  with  Guizct,  De 
TocqucviliC,  and  Thiers, 

CONTEMPORARY  FRANCE 

By 

GABRIEL  HANOTAUX 

Formerly  Minister  o£  Foreign  Affairi 

Translated  by 

John  Charles  Tarver 

and 

E.  Sparvel-Bayly 

J^'our  volumes.  Octavo.  Each  complete  hi  itself  and  eoverhig 
a  definite  period.  Illustrated  with  portraits  in  photogravure. 
Sold  separately,  each,  net,  $3-y3 . 

Vol.  I.  FRANCE  IN  1870-1873. 

Vol.  li.  FRANCE  IN  1873-1875. 

Vol.  III.  FRANCE  IN  1874-1877. 

Vol.  IV.  FRANCE  IN  1877-1882. 

"  It  is  with  satisfaction  on  taking  up  one  of  the  most  important  contri- 
I  butions  to  history,  to  find  the  work  so  sympathetically  and  exactly  translated 
I  as  is  M.  Hanotaux's  'Contemporary  France.'  Such  a  translation  fits  the 
I  American  reader  to  appreciate  the  work  in  all  of  its  excellence.  .  .  ,  The 
I  first  of  the  four  volumes  challenges  our  attention  from  start  to  finish,  because 
>  in  it  we  recognize  not  only  the  work  of  a  careful,  trained  scholar,  but  also 
I  that  of  the  first-hand  observer.  .  .  .  M.  Hanotaux  guides  us  with  a 
I  very  personal  hand ;  on  every  page  he  gives  recollections  of  the  great  men 
whom  he  himself  has  known.  .  .  .  The  readers  of  tins  volume  will  await 
with  keen  interest  the  publication  of  the  others.  Together  the  four  should 
fonn  a  monument  of  contemporary  history  indispensable  to  the  library  of 
the  student  either  of  recent  history  or  present  politics." — The  Outlook. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  tONDON 


DATE  DUE 


»"  ^  » '     >     .    ,r^r 

^ 

m  M 

ym^ 

NOV    e 

imo^'  ^ 

HIGHSMITH    45-  102                                                  PRIN  T  ED   IN    U  .  S.  A. 

DD801  S45L62  1911 
Louise  Antoinette  Marie, 

1870-1947. 
My  own  story 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA     001  359  571       5 


iVilnii^ll  JlllTllPl1„9l?,  tfl.'.^ERSIDE  LIBRARY 


3  1210  00631  4528 


